Close Call!

Last month, I told my friends (and family too) that the operative word of the month that meant my nemesis was the word "commode!"

That, if you recall, was because of a little clumsiness on my part when I fell backwards in the bathroom and into the tank on the back of the commode and it broke into several pieces and flooded my bathroom. And then, two weeks later, the commode got plugged up somehow and overflowed on me -not just once but three times between 11 p.m. and 3 in the morning -and resulted in a friend of mine coming down here early in the morning then with his equipment to use to unplug that unit!

I've made numerous jokes now over both those events but trust me, funny as they are to relate later, I'm really not interested in the least in having any more problems of either type again! Not soon, not EVER!

But tonight, I got a scare as I really thought the commode was going to overflow on me again!

I noticed before I flushed it that the water level was not up where it usually is but instead, was very low. However, I didn't think of that as being a problem until I pushed the lever to flush to commode and the water didn't go down but instead, just kept coming up, closer and closer to the rim of the bowl before it stopped.

And thank goodness it did stop there because a few more drops and yes, I'd have been faced with the chore of mopping up yet another overflowing unit!

This time though, I did take immediate actions!

I found the shutoff valve and turned the water off and tried to plunge the damned thing to get the water to begin to go down but all to no avail!

Because I really didn't want to face the morning's light with no facility that my roommate and I really both would want to use, and since it wasn't quite 10 p.m. when this happened, I phoned my "go to" neighbor across the road from my house to see if he maybe had a "snake" -one of those auger type things you use to deplug blocked commodes -and he said yes, he did and also, that he would gather it up along with his plunger and be right down!

And he was here in less that 10 minutes and in less that 5 minutes, using his plunger only, he had the lovely thing working properly again with not a drop of excess water landing on my bathroom floor this time.

Now, I had been seriously thinking because of the problem I had with it overflowing a month ago, that it might be a good investment for me to purchase one of these "snake" things but I hadn't actually taken the initiative to do that yet, I decided after tonight's little episode that I'm not taking any chances any more.

Tomorrow, I have a doctor's appointment in Clearfield and after I finish with that, I'm making a stop at Walmart and will be getting an auger thing as well as a new plunger too because the plunger I have now, although it is new (just bought it about 3 months ago), this one is worthless!

Be Prepared! My older grandson, who is vying for his Eagle Scout badge now and my younger grandson  -little Kurtis -who just this fall started with the Cub Scouts program -both would give old Gram a pat on the back for taking that slogan to heart and becoming prepared for any future commode emergencies!