Plunging the Depths of Parenting * August 30, 2007
NOTE: Many of my new friends and readers may not know that I have been sending my emails out into cyber space for, going on, seven years. It’s like I’ve been under house arrest and I’ve been sneaking these messages out through the milkman for years. So in celebration of my long captivity behind various computers, this week I’d like to send out an “old,” email, original posting date September 30, 2003, that I’ll be calling “a classic,” and I’d like to dedicate this to Adam, my youngest child, who will be getting married September 8th.
Hello Good People,
When will it end? When will childhood end and they will officially, completely, and with finality be grown up? Our kids! That’s who I’m talking about, and I don’t mean grown up in the sense that they have jobs and car payments. I mean grown up in the sense that they take responsibility for 1) clogging the toilet, and 2) unclogging the toilet. You know grown UP.
So there I sat in an easy chair, reading a book about the geo-political ramifications of the history of the children of Abraham on the modern conflict in the Middle East (okay, I was reading a People Magazine) when I noticed that Adam, our eighteen-year old, had been wandering in and out of our bathroom on a fairly regular basis—all morning. It was really annoying, especially because Adam refuses to use good posture when walking.
Finally, I demanded to know what was wrong with the other bathroom that he couldn’t use it. It’s still clogged, I was informed. So fix it, I suggested. We can’t find a plunger was his excuse.
While I tried to crack Adam, Maren, our twenty-year old, wandered by on her way to use my bathroom. I felt an interrogation coming on.
“Freeze woman!” Maren froze, slump shouldered next to my chair. “How long has your toilet been clogged?” I demanded.
“Oh, for a while.”
“What? Define—a while.”
They chorused, “A couple of days.”
My magazine dropped from my suddenly numb fingers as I shouted, “What were you going to do when you clogged my toilet up, start using a bucket in the corner?”
They shrugged their slumpy young adult shoulders.
“Get a plunger! Now!
“You threw the plunger away,” Maren offered helpfully.
A vague flashback of tossing an accordion shaped plunger into the garbage flashed through my mind. My husband had justified the purchase of the accordion shaped plunger by saying that it looked cool. When he bought that plunger he had been like a crow attracted to a bright, shiny object. The problem was that the oddly shaped plunger had a few design flaws, and the only thing that the accordion design seemed to accomplish was to splash foul water into the face of the user. I had, in fact, thrown it away.
“Are you ACTUALLY blaming your clogged toilet on me?” I became lightheaded with anger. “You both have cars. You both have driver’s licenses. You both know where the plungers are bought and sold. GO GET A PLUNGER!”
Adam and Maren looked faintly bored. My husband just kept his head down as he packed his suitcase (for a business trip—not to escape.) A long, stale moment passed and then . . .
“Mom,” Maren asked, “do you have any money?”
My hand shook as I handed cash to my “adult” daughter. I sent her off with instructions to buy a simple, classic, efficient plunger. Nothing fancy. Nothing new fangled. Forty minutes later, she returned triumphant saying, “Look Mom, I bought a pretty one.” Is it possible to black out from a frustration explosion in your brain?
Later, as I unclogged their toilet, my two grown children swear they heard me say, “Down! Down! Go down, damn you!” But you’ll have to ask them, because I have no memory of it.
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with this world. No one will take responsibility for clogging the toilet, and no one wants to take responsibility for unclogging it. And maybe if the whole world ignores the situation long enough, Mom or America, will be forced to put down what they’re doing, get up from those easy chairs, and do something about all those clogged toilets. Watch out—she just might.
Plunge on my friends. Plunge on.
Linda L. Zern
