The other day while hanging out in our almost-a-century-old basement apartment by myself, I decided to do some cleaning. Zac was at work, and since our little 500 square foot apartment can be totally cleaned in just a few short hours, I went to work. I started on the bathroom, since that's the room that always seems to get the dirtiest the fastest. Between my make up all over the counter in the morning, and Zac's occasional shaving, it doesn't stand a chance.
Growing up, my mom would make us kids (Daniel, me, Rachel and Sara, mostly, because we were the ones who were home schooled) clean the entire house every other Monday, instead of learning about History, Math, English, and any other expected school subject. She said that she wanted us to learn how to clean a house, an
d how to clean it well. While this was mostly true, there's still a part of me that knows that somewhere deep down inside of her, she really just wanted her house cleaned. It was fine with me, though, because we'd get to split up into teams of two, and do house work, and it was a lot of fun. Not to mention the pizza she'd always order for lunch every other Monday. Sure, sometimes we'd fight about who did what, but looking back now, it was fun, and the feeling of a clean house afterward was incredible. Not only that, but now I know how to "clean the shit out of a house." (Sorry, that was weird. I hardly ever swear, promise.)
My mom always taught me, when cleaning a bathroom, to always clean the toilet last, so as to not spread the germs that were on the toilet to the sink or the bathtub. So, I cleaned the sink and the shower first, and then moved onto the toilet. Our toilet has a hard time flushing stuff down. Usually, we'll flush, and then a while later, toilet paper will creep back up and sit at the bottom of the bowl. (I know you are all dying to hear this.) Since that's what happened in this very instance, before attempting to clean the toilet, I flushed, hoping the toilet paper would go down. It didn't. Instead, the water in the toilet bowl went up to the very top of the bowl, and just sat there. Our toilet was clogged.
Zac and I don't have a plunger. We're usually pretty good about not clogging the toilet. I'm not even sure that this little incident was our fault, because our little toilet looks about as old as the house is that we live in. Not knowing how to clean a clogged toilet (my mom didn't teach me that one), I waited for Zac to come home. When he did come home, he went and used the bathroom, flushed twice, and over flowed the toilet. I'm talking toilet water all over the floor of the bathroom, seeping into the carpet of our bedroom. I'm not going to lie--I was freaking out a little. I handed him two of our extra towels (thank goodness for people giving us an abundance of bath towels for our wedding that we couldn't return), and we wiped up the mess as best as he could. I stayed far away.
When he was finished, I told him that we needed to buy a plunger. We drove over to Walmart, and picked one out. We had to walk the length of the store carrying that stupid thing. It was kind of embarrassing. Everyone knows that if you're at the store, carrying only a plunger, and walking in a hurry, there's only one thing t
hat could've happened. Everyone who passed us was giving us weird, disgusted looks. I mumbled to Zac, "Don't look at us, don't look at us, don't look at us," as we made our way up to the self check-out lane.
When we got home, Zac took action and plunged the toilet. It took him a while, because our toilet is pretty crappy (haha, get it?!). But soon enough, the deed was done. Then I made him mop the floor with cleaner, and he did. Our toilet is working now, which is fantastic, because I really had to go that night.
In other news, we finally got our wedding pictures back after two and a half months of being married. I'll post more on that lovely day in a while. I guess I also still need to post pictures of our lovely apartment (and when I say lovely, I mean falling apart, bug-infested, smells like cigarette smoke). Stay tuned for that. I know you'll love it!
