Taking a Stand

Written in response to The Daily Post’s Daily Prompt: Not Lemonade. When life hands you lemons…make something else. Tell us about a time you used an object or resolved an issue in an unorthodox way.

Weekly travel was once the norm for me as a consultant for a non-profit educational foundation. One week I’d be in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, and the next week I’d be in Detroit, Michigan, or Albuquerque, New Mexico, or some point in between. As a result of all this travel, I’ve stayed in more than my share of hotels. Some have been luxurious. Others have been dumps.

  
 

 
One thing they all have in common, besides the requisite bed, is a notable lack of a plunger for the toilet. On more than one occasion I’ve managed to clog a hotel bathroom toilet. Blame it on faulty plumbing setups or questionable Mexican food, but a clogged hotel john is a lemon of the worst kind. 

Typically the clog occurs in the middle of the night, and even if one could face the embarrassment of calling the front desk for assistance, seldom would anyone answer the call. I don’t know what the main desk clerks do at night, but fixing toilets apparently isn’t a priority.

I quickly learned that I had to be my own best plumber. (If you’re squeamish, just stop reading now and imagine fuzzy bunnies and pink flowers.) the first time I was faced with the clogged toilet predicament my initial instinct was to use a pair of my own underwear to cover my hand for a foray into the bowl. But that was an indescribably icky thought, and I don’t buy cheap undies.

Casting around for anything to keep my hand dry I spotted the small trash bin with the ubiquitous clear plastic liner. Channeling my inner Archimedes, I shouted, “Eureka!” while inserting my right hand into the liner and then quickly into the bowels of the bowl. 

My idea went swimmingly! The clog came free. A flush took all of the waste away, and no one but yours truly knew there’d ever been an issue. Well, I did have to swish the liner around in the clean toilet to remove any evidence of my activity, but that was a minor task in the scheme of things. After one’s arm has been in poop up to one’s elbow, everything else is, well, lemonade.

  
Peace, people!