Bathroom Woes, Salty Toes

The bottom of this post is lined with toilet water for your utmost convenience.  

There's nothing quite like a malfunctioning bathroom.  But once you've had one, you'll be hard-pressed to see a toilet in the same light again.  Why is it that only home toilets seem to flood?  You never see people surfing on toilet water waves at Wal-Mart, and the industrial flush in those places always works flawlessly.  Perhaps it's punishment for being sedentary couch potatoes.  We should be out and about buying more couches and using bathrooms that work.  First world problems for the win.

(I should add that I recently went to a restaurant in which their second floor women's bathroom stall was locked from the inside, and emanating the stinkiest odors from someone's sassy excrement.  But I think that was more a fault of a customer and maintenance than an evil toilet.)

So I was in a meeting the other day, and the warm-up question was thus: "What's something funny that happened to you this week?"  "Well, my toilet flooded," I replied, half-laughing.  As I'd learned to expect over the week, everyone gasped, thinking of the worst possible situation.  But, dear reader, please note that my bladder was graciously empty in the advent of this fiasco.  Let's not get into past experiences, because nothing puts a damper on poop jokes like a toilet flooding with feces.

Now that I've disgusted you enough, let us delve into my reactions to this 6:20 AM bathroom chaos.  I'd like to say that I was studious enough to keep a troubleshooting manual taped to the side of my toilet, but alas, Bathroom Readers are my sole source of bathroom entertainment.  I grappled with the confounded twisty thing on the pipe while holding up the little black cap thing in the back so it couldn't release even more water into the system.  I'm really into this technical language thing, obviously.

I could almost hear the snores of my entire family downstairs, oblivious to my struggle.  Then to top it off, my 6:30 AM alarm went off with Big Bang's autotuned "Tonight" and I wailed in grief.  Only my wicked toilet was there to grin cutely at my pain, spraying water from every crack.  I had several brilliant ideas, and several stupid ones.  It turns out that the toothbrush-esque toilet cleaner doesn't work quite like a plunger.  I didn't want to test out my hypothesis that toe-washing water would provide the salt necessary for egg soup (not my idea, I got it from a Korean drama).

Through brute force (and realizing the twisty thing to close off the pipe was supposed to be turned the other way), the flood ceased, and I was able to return to my daily life.  Other than the fact, you know, that the water had somehow leaked through the tiled floor of my bathroom to the ceiling of the first floor, right where I had parked my school stuff for the night.  My physics notebook took the biggest hit, and for the rest of the day, I pulled out each subject notebook and wiped it on my backpack before returning to my studious, unafflicted-by-bathroom-woes self.

Trends in the Lime-o-sphere

I'm really tempted to begin with embedded music, but I imagine that would be overkill.  Especially for those who may think my color scheme is excruciating in the first place.  I'm sorry.  I understand that these shades are not meant for everybody.  At least, I can conceive it.  I do not actually understand.   

So instead, I'll begin with an introduction.  I hope this can clear up any confusion about the purpose of this lime green niche.  Much like a historian, I can predict the recurring themes in this blog, which are highlighted in the first five shades below.  I urge you to skim:

1. I have strange and fixated relationships with food, especially eggs.  One of my longest friendships hinges on the fact that I love what she abhors -- eggs.  I've been manning the subbie retreat egg race for three years, this time bringing back 40 leftover eggs to scramble and spice.  I'm not sure if it's my Asian taste buds, the natural addictive qualities of eggs, or something.  But let me clarify -- this is not a food blog, nor is it an egg blog.  I just might reference it a few times.

2. My taste in music is questionable.  I'll always be the first to defend my many lovers against plastic surgery accusations and "he looks like a girl" comments, but I'll also be the first to admit that Korean pop isn't exactly the most objectively excellent music genre.  I think that Justin Bieber has a gorgeous voice and that "What Makes You Beautiful" is a great song (that may or may not have been played 241 times in the past week).  I watch Asian soap operas with incredible dedication.  Please don't judge me.

3. Athletics are the bane of my life.  Uni fitness is about as far as I'll go in terms of sports.  I am the lessthan30%?  But, as indicated by my third shade, I've been a tapper for quite a few years, and before that, a ballet/jazz/tap/strength junkie.  Dance is an art, not a sport.

4. Math has the ability to excite me.  I'm not a great mathematician by any means.  But perfecting a proof by induction or figuring out a difficult integral is the best feeling in the world.  Getting stuck on a quiz or test question is the worst stomach-knotter.

5. Your argument is invalid because I'm an artist.  I dearly hope that at some point in my life, I'll be able to concentrate on art.  I haven't even had the chance to dabble in many different styles yet, or stretch outside of my comfort zone.  These days, I can only allow myself to focus on art if it's for school (often ending up in me seeing every project as an artistic opportunity, even if it's a simple blog post).  And yes, that is an anthropomorphic lime scribbling with a drawing tablet.