Household Nemesis

Well, dear blog readers, I realize the subject of this posting is probably violating some sort of etiquette and will be considered most uncouth, but my lesser judgment will win out anyway.

Or, for the sake of argument, let's pretend this isn't me writing this post, but a single guy. That'll make it seem right up my ally.

So I don't know about most of you, but it seems like every time I move into a new place, there is some sort of appliance or apparatus that I repeatedly can't get to work or that seems to have a grudge against just me. Sometimes it's the lock on the storage door. Sometimes it's the microwave. Things of this nature.

Well, I'm here to tell you: in this apartment, it's the main toilet in the unit. (I would insert the music from Hitchcock's Psycho here, with the killer scene in the shower...just think of that music when thinking of the doggone toilet and you'll feel some empathy.)

Again, imagine that I am a man writing this post. Or a college guy. Not me. Nope, definitely not a woman writing this. Anyway, so the toilet plugs on me at least 3 times a week. Doesn't matter what business is being done, or how much or how little toilet paper is used. At first, I thought if I simply held the handle down long enough, it would solve my problem. Worked for a little while, but then my nemesis got wise to my plan and and somehow this inert piece of porcelain caught on, the clever devil!

So I changed toilet paper brands. Actually, we had to do that anyway, since we couldn't find the stuff we used while living in Escondido. The toilet actually seems to gloat with the stuff we have, because it still clogs on a regular basis.

Part of my selfish nature would love to blame this on the other man in the house. After all, he has not plugged it once. I would love to say that my problems stem from using it at some point in the day after he has used it, but it completely baffles me that he has not plugged it. Perhaps it plugs after he uses it, and I'm just the poor dumb schmuck who has to use it next? No, that indeed would be most unfair.

So needless to say, for those of you who have ever been around the males in the extended family, the subject of the "Beehive Method" has come up. How do you work with an ornery toilet that loves to plug all the time? According to the male in my household, a tried-and-true trick of the trade is not to wad up the TP in hand, but rather to take it off of the TP holder, wrap it around your hand (i.e. a beehive), and proceed to do your thing without causing wads to build up in the toilet bowl. I don't know how I feel about this, because I like to keep the TP on the holder instead of leaving it on the counter all of the time. Besides, I don't want to forget to put it back on the holder when guests come over. I have to hand it to him, though, it did work the one time I tried it.

So who will win this household battle? Will it be the the toilet, or the beehive? I guess time will tell. Maybe I should just take my husband's advise and avoid this bathroom altogether. That way it can cause someone else a problem and I wouldn't have to think about beehives and other methodology behind toilet paper.