Not Handy. Not Helpful.

I've got about a million reasons why I shouldn't try to be handy and yet...

Aaron was home from work early today, and I was riding an amazing wave of productivity from the morning - two kids got check-ups and shots, the pharmacy was visited, workboots were successfully returned to the store, and Sebastian's birthday gifts arrived in the mail, right on schedule.  The lunch I made for the kids was spectacularly well-balanced and served at the kitchen table.  Aaron came home to find two chill kids and me just sitting down to blog about the doctor.  There were a few household maintenance announcements about the thawing Cornish game hens we're having for dinner and our slow toilet, but the day was a success.  Why not push it?

I surrendered the computer to Aaron and went to find something to do.  I know! I thought I'll check on that toilet!


Sure enough, it was running slow.  We live in an older duplex full of fun quirks like the kitchen sink that clogged our first week here, a mysterious kitchen leak that may or may not be the dishwasher (the puddle appears about 2 feet away from it), and a slow toilet down the hall, so whatever.  Audrey also took a solemn vow to take any half-empty toilet paper roll and flush it when no one else is around, so we keep the plunger on hand.  No matter: I once googled how to plunge a toilet, so I felt like this would just be another win for my super-productive day.  I don't know why I thought that.  I should not have thought that.

Let me be clear, the toilet drained fine, but slow.  The bowl had clear, clean water in it when I arrived, and it returned to that state when flushed, but it just got a little too high when I flushed it and took an extra several seconds to fully drain.  I could plunge it a few times and it would speed up, no worries.  Piece of cake.

Two flushes and the bowl filled.  Plunging wasn't working, so I figured I needed to flush again, be real quick with the plunger, and then watch, satisfied with my handiness.

Not five seconds later, I was racing backwards trying to stick myself Spiderman-style to the bathroom wall, watching a growing pool of clear water and toilet paper try to absorb my sneakers, my brain screaming  Abort!  Abort!  Retreat!  Man Down!  MAN DOWN!

"AAR----!" The scream died in my throat.  My life flashed before my eyes, visions of the last week swam in front of me, with echoes of the last three days filling my ears:

Aaron: "The toilet's running slow."  "Okay, I'll look at it while you're at work."
"Audrey, did you put this toilet paper in the potty? That's a NO MA'AM!"
"Mom, we probably need to rescue my clock..." "Okay, get back in bed, Sebastian."
"Hey, we might need someone to look at this toilet..."

Then my brain settled on one image: Sebastian leaning on the recliner, in his Iron Man shirt and Spiderman briefs, his brow furrowed, his lips pursed in concern.  He was giving me bad news or telling me a story, but he should have been napping:
"Mom, my clock got lost in the potty.  We need to call the Wescue Bots to come and wescue my clock."
"Wait, what happened?"
"My clock Mom!  It got lost in the potty and when I flushed, it went away.  We need to call Optimus Pwime to get the clock out of the potty so I can have my clock."
"Your clock is in the potty?"
"Mom, we probably need to rescue my clock.  We need to call the Wescue Bots to come and get my clock out of the potty."

His clock.  My blue pedometer.  It had been in their toys, then on my bed, but it wasn't in the bathroom.      At the time, I knew it could be there, but that was the same day he had been talking about the "Wescue Bots with the big gween booger" that attacked the city.  Maybe this was just another episode, I had hoped as I went back to drinking my tea.

That was two days ago.  Two days of slow toilet comments from Aaron.

I lurched back as another stream of water came for my foot, placed a towel by the door, and turned slowly.  I chewed the inside of my lip thoughtfully and steeled myself to tell Aaron.

When you're taking your wedding vows and you say "as long as we both shall live," you don't think about all the things that are really going to happen during that time.  Of course not: you're both dressed up, everyone is there, and it's a beautiful day.  Maybe you envision yourselves old and on a porch swing, with flowers and happy grandchildren in the lush, green yard, playing with a puppy that you gave them because everything is perfect and all grandchildren should have a puppy.  At that point in your life, you have written each other a poem every day, so now you are smiling and holding wrinkled hands.  Everyone in the scene tosses their heads back and laughs because life is one big laundry detergent commercial.  Fairies are singing in the background as the words "to love and cherish...for better or worse...as long as we both shall live" echo through time and space.

I thought this as I walked down the long hallway to find Aaron, my dear, darling, long-suffering husband, who made those vows years ago, before he realized how my forgetfulness and lack of handiness would unravel each and every day of his life.  He hadn't known then that, instead of writing each other love poems, we would spend our days cleaning up the little messes that I just kind of... failed to adequately address.

"Um, Aaron," I gulped, finding him in the living room.  "The toilet overflowed.  We have to call maintenance.  And, um, I may have forgotten to tell you something important."
His blue eyes widened with curiosity.  "What's that?"
"The other day, Sebastian kind of um, dropped, um, the pedometer in our toilet?  And he mentioned it but I may not have, um, investigated that... completely..."
A smile broke across Aaron's face.  "Well then, I guess we will need to call maintenance, huh?"
"Yeah, and there's water all over the bathroom floor..."
"Okay, I'll come back and help.  You know, the shut off valve is right there, so you can stop it if the water starts overflowing."
"How do you think to grab that when you're running away from the water?"
He laughed harder.  I turned to go get some towels to start cleaning up.

This is why I should not pretend to be handy.  This is also why Aaron will be laughing when we're old and holding hands on a porch swing... that he probably had to fix.