So what would you do if you just came home and your Lovely and Talented Wife and/or Husband, Partner, Life Partner, Girl Friend, Boy Friend, Roommate, [Fill in Blank] says, “GO see what the kids are doing?”

That’s not a good sign. Especially when you can hear them talking. When one of them is screaming, you know what to expect. When they are talking, there is no limit to the evil mischief that they are getting themselves into. What’s worse, is that I hear them both in the Bathroom and it’s not tubtime. Rarely are they in there together, in a playing sort of environment.

The way our hall bathroom is configured, the Large Wall mirror is positioned so that if the door is open you can see the toilet from the living room. This could lead to embarrassment for someone who didn’t quite shut the door. In my case, I use it as an early warning system. I can “see” the inside of the bathroom before I get there and this gives me at least 2 seconds to process what I see before I get to the bathroom, cutting the “Surprise and Alarm” factor by 2.

So, I am hearing the kids talking (oh, not good) and then, in the mirror, I see them around the toilet (oh, SO not good) and The Elder has the toilet scrubber (Bad, very bad). Oh, please Lord, let it not be a clogged toilet with poop and toilet paper and the toilet scrubber breaking apart wet unsanitary paper and it flinging everywhere, I don’t want to have to call the Center for Disease Control to come down to sanitize the bathroom.

So in 2 seconds, I am turning into the bathroom asking, “What are you doing?”

“They won’t go down,” The Elder replies. And then I see this:

The Hellions Kids are stuffing packing peanuts down the toilet. DOWN THE TOILET! And The Elder is using the toilet brush to ram them down, since they have to flush them. The optimist in me thinks, “Well, at least it’s not poop.”

So what would you do? What I did Below:

I

AM

Making

This

Invisotext

Because my HTML editor eats up

Extra white space… bastard.

Anyway, go look in the mirror and say “Damn, I’m looking GOOD!”

“No! No! Let’s put the scrubber away and get out of here. Let’s go to the kitchen.”

I take the scrubber away and think to myself how I get to fish out the peanuts from the toilet water… sure SOME could be sent to the water treatment plant, but not all at once. I usher the kids out of the bathroom to the kitchen. As I pass My Lovely and Talented Wife’s Office she inquires,

“What were they up to?”

“Heh, it’s picture worthy… They were stuffing peanuts down the toilet,” I said in passing as I got the kids redirected into the kitchen and to get my camera.

“Oh, I should of told them not to do them all at once.” WHAT? They had Executive Clearance to stuff packing peanuts down the toilet? Am I in the right house? “They probably just need to add some water, they are the biodegradable peanuts.”

Oh… thank goodness! And sure enough, all it took was some additional water and the peanuts dissolved and the toilet was Free and Clear.