It was 22-Sept, Saturday afternoon.
I felt as if i was Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. I'm talking about the scene where he flushed the toilet when the septic tank was blocked and caused the water to overflow and his girlfriend's parents' place filled with bodily refuse.
Ok, maybe not that dramatic, but bad enough.
Here's what happened (and the story may probably gross you out).
As mentioned before, i have this constipation problem for as long as i could remember. This causes a bit of unexpected inconvenience for me other than being a potential threat to health.
The thing is... (it's kinda embarrassing to write about this)... The effect of not passing motion everyday is that whenever i do get to defecate, the faeces are hard and often a lot too. This in turn means that if i were to defecate into a toilet bowl with weak flush, the stool would get stuck and resulted in a blockage.
That had happened before, once in the company and once at our rented flat in SG. For the toilet in the office, the cleaner took care of it (how? I don't know). As for the blockage at home, i gotta buy a plunger and unclog the toilet myself.
Then today, it happened again. And where could have been a worse place for it to happen than my boyfriend's parent's home, and the toilet that was connected to his parents' room?!!
After finished with my business, i flushed the toilet, and to my horror, i saw the water draining sluggishly from the toilet bowl, with a small piece of shit not able to be flushed down successfully. I knew what went wrong instantly when i saw this familiar sight, and the voice that came to my head, aptly, was "oh shit!"
Luckily, 贝's family was out and i had some time to unclog the toilet. I flushed several times again, it didn't work. I poured pails of water into the toilet bowl, it didn't work. I sprayed water at the opening with water hose, it still didn't work. That piece of shit was still there in the toilet bowl.
I so wanna die.
It was time to do what i do best at work -- analyze the situation.
That piece of shit that refused to go down the drain was too small in size to cause the blockage. The water in the toilet bowl didn't really overflow but was just draining away slowly. This means that the blockage wasn't too serious and it was probably clogged at the narrow trap.
贝's mother might be coming back any time soon. So what i really needed to fix quickly was to get rid of that piece of floating stool, buy a plunger to unclog the trap (since i couldn't find any in the house).
Then the next question was: how the hell am i gonna get rid of that floating stool? I had tried spraying water at it, hoping to break it into small pieces, but boy oh boy, that sure was a piece of hard shit.
Of course, picking it up from the toilet bowl was one of the ways and i do admit that it crossed my mind for a split second, but i quickly discounted it, as i would have problem disposing it after picking it up. I couldn't possibly throw it into the garbage bin.
So, it was time to improvise.
I took a pair of disposable chopsticks and a plastic bag from the kitchen. With the chopsticks, i prodded the faeces into tiny pieces. Then i flushed the toilet again and this time no more shit was in sight. I then threw the chopsticks into the plastic bag, wrapped it around, tied it up and threw it away. Finally, the toilet bowl appeared to be clean, even though it was actually still clogged.
And where was 贝 all this time? He was away in the living room, laughing his head off at my misery. I of course couldn't possibly ask him to help me out with cleaning my shit, but i did ask him to keep a lookout for me in case his mother returned and caught me playing with shit in her toilet.
Anyway, by the time i was done with this mess, it was already 2pm. 贝 and i went out for lunch (ya, i could still eat after all that shitty business) and bought a plunger. I tried to unclog the toilet with the plunger but it didn't work. I gave up after several attempts and warned 贝 not to tell his family about this whole fiasco unless he wants me never come visit again. I asked him to pretend that the toilet was just suddenly blocked and we bought the plunger to help unblocking it.
Then things got interesting in the evening. 贝's six-year-old nephew went pooing at the same toilet after dinner, when 贝's sister, 贝 and i were sitting in the kitchen brewing and drinking Chinese tea. After little nephew was done with his business, 贝's dad flushed the toilet for the kid. Then the expected happened. The stool couldn't be flushed down the toilet, even though it was the product of a little kid.
I felt so guilty when i saw 贝's dad pouring pails of water into the toilet bowl, trying to flush away the shit. 贝 then casually told his dad that the toilet seemed to be clogged and we bought the plunger but couldn't unclog it. Luckily he didn't sell me out by telling his family that it was all my doing.
I think 贝's dad managed to flush away the shit later (since a kid's shit should be smaller in size and softer), but the toilet was still blocked. I didn't know what happened later until 贝 told me the next day that his mom successfully unclogged the toilet. I don't know how she did it, but i'm just glad that the blockage didn't turn into a nasty full-blown disaster with my shit floating on an overflowed toilet bowl.
The moral of the story is this: try to hold your shit when you are visiting your future in-laws. You'd never know what kind of shit would happen.
And 贝, if you are reading this, do be reminded to keep this as a secret and never ever divulge this incident to your family, unless you wanna be killed by me.