My son has been stuffing toilets since he learned to go potty. Or maybe he hasn’t really yet learned to go potty because he still can’t properly use one. He’ll be 13 in August and he still thinks peeing with the seat down is like some sort of sick carnival game. The stuffing part isn’t all his fault he just creates abnormally large thick logs. I know that’s disgusting to read, but not nearly as gross as living in the same house with it.
I’ll spare the details of the last nine year’s worth of extra large feces and the accompanying overflow stories, but this weekend we’re staying at a hotel just the three of us, my wife, my son and me.
I’m not sure if he’s been eating steel ball bearings or he just doesn’t go for days at a time, but I now find myself searching for Ex Lax in a part of Massachusettes where the hotel visitor’s guide lists the “Heifer Walk” as the next major attraction. The photo shows a cute little pontailed girl with a cow, but the women walking into the hotel as I leave, have me wondering if the event doesn’t begin in our lobby.
Needless to say there aren’t many 24 hour pharmacies and the few scattered gas stations and mini marts are lightly stocked with meds that help stop the runs, but not start the race.
I already know how this will work, once I am sufficiently hopelessly lost or I have found the product, my son will have pooped. So I call every 15 minutes or so to ask how it’s going.
“Dad! Stop making a joke out of everything!”
I’m not laughing. It’s Friday night, I’m on the first day of my first vacation in three years – most of which will be spent in a hospital with my baby girl next week, and I am in the middle of nowhere on safari looking for Ex Lax so my kid can take a dump.
Eventually, I find a Walgreens, directly across the street from a CVS. Apparently the owner of one of these great franchises went to the Starbucks school of business – but now after nearly an hour of coming up empty, I have a choice of where I can spend $13.99 for my son to do what comes naturally to me three times a day.
I call my wife. “Most of these say “works gently overnight.” Isn’t there something that “works roughly in minutes?”
Yes, but he wants to swallow rather than insert - so I hand the lady a $20.
She apologizes for some brief delay in getting to the register, but she should be apologizing for selling a box of four laxitives for $13.99 plus tax.
I am in fact now, as my wife predicted I would be, hopelessly lost, so it takes 45 minutes to find my back to the hotel where my wife and son meet me in the lobby to of course tell me he has gone already. He feels better, but all is not well.
He has of course, not only stuffed the toilet with one of his soda-can size doodies, but the toilet has overflowed and there’s now shit water all over the floor in room 440 at the Hilton Garden hotel in Central Massachusettes
My wife and son have a brilliant plan to handle this awkward situation. They have closed the door and left, and are now waiting for me in the lobby to go tell somebody. They will meet me at Pizzeria Uno while I go talk to the front desk.
“Dad, don’t tell ‘em it was me,” My son pleads.
OK kid, I’ll blame the maid. I’ll say she stopped by to fluff the pillows, leave some mints and took a dump the size of a dachsund, before leaving and lockling the door behind her.
So now my mini “vacation” includes personally walking up to a young attractive Russian reception girl to ask about a plunger for a stuffed toilet.
No problem we’ll send somebody up. Se we’re at Pizzeria Uno and they have a million stupid jokes. My son is a lot happier after he craps – which unfortunately is only about twice a month.
When we get back to the room, there has been no sign of a janitor or housecleaning, but the message light is blinking.
“I’m sorry,” the girl at the desk tells me. Everyone is apologizing for the wrong reason tonight. “I’ve been calling you for the last hour.”
“WHY?!”
“We don’t like to send people up if you’re not in the room.” huh?
And we don't like hanging around nearby while other people are cleaning up our doodies.
She's going t0 send someone back up now.
So there we are watching the Discovery Channel while some poor schmuck is unstuffing the toilet and cleaning up my son’s doody water.
My wife whispers but loudly over the sloshing, “Hey, do you think we need to tip him?”
What do you tip somebody for mopping somebody else’s shitwater in central Massachusettes in 2009 during a recession?
I think anything less than $1,000 would be an insult, so I opt for "no" in order to not feel cheap.
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