Toilet-Palooza & Things That Shouldn’t Be in the Laundry

Laundry is the herpes of household chores. No matter how you attack it, it never completely goes away. What could possibly make it worse?

Let me tell you.

What you need to know about me is that I have an autistic 5-year-old son who recently completed potty training and is obsessed with H2O. Water is his boo, his jam, his passion. I know this because I have attended several impromptu Toliet-Palooza festivals and floods he has hosted inside our bathrooms and kitchen. As fun as they were, we now must keep these doors  locked, which presents another problem.

Nathan struggles with speech, so he can’t tell me when he has to use the potty. Therefore, I must be a diligent observer of his body language or face an inconvenient pool of urine, or worse. When I’m outnumbered by the kids 3 to 1, it’s hard be the toilet whisperer. Last Saturday was one of those times.

Between the 8-year old’s non-stop narration of literally everything and the 16-year-old’s non-stop complaining about the narration, I not only missed his “pee-pee dance,” but also his “download squat” and he relieved himself on the kitchen floor. To a “typically” developing family, this may sound shocking, but let me assure you, we are not typical.

I was enjoying a rare moment of peace, having an actual conversation with my teenager when the narrator interrupted to impart the tale of the turd upon us. We simply moved to the scene and finished our convo cleaning up a steaming pile of toddler excrement, because that’s how we roll.

As a matter of fact, things of this nature had become so commonplace that I didn’t even think about it again until the next day when I was unloading the dryer, and the odor hit me so hard that I became nauseated.

Not that I’ve never smelled crap. I’ve sniffed more than my fair share.

I just wasn’t prepared for it.

I was ready for Downy Lavender Serenity.

And there’s nothing serene about the scent of stool.

Confused, yet focused on the task at hand, I continued to pull the last few items from the dryer,  and that’s when I saw it.

One small tan ball in the center of my Kenmore. Except this was no ordinary ball. It was sh*t. There was a ball of sh*t inside my dryer.

As usual, the narrator was by my side, so I sent her for Clorox Wipes. Cautiously, I stuck my head inside to survey the damage. It looked like Jackson Pollack had painted my dryer with a turd. Had I washed and dried feces? If I did, would it still smell? Maybe I had really and truly lost my mind.

When I’m about to go psycho, I start to talk to myself out loud. My 8-year-old daughter was listening intently. In addition to being the family narrator, she is also a junior detective.

As I cleaned the vessel of my most despised chore, the detective began to question me about  the “crime scene.” She had reappeared with a notebook, pencil and was now sporting a newsboy cap.

How many pieces did you find, ma’am?

Me: Just the one.

Can you describe the smell?

Me: Yes. Yes, I can. It smells like straight up sewage.

Any dead bodies?

Me: WHAT???

This is what happens when you let the babysitter watch Law & Order, I think, and make a mental note to change the parent codes on the T.Vs ASAP.

I had enough.

Me: NO, I haven’t found a body, but somebody is going to be in big trouble if they don’t tell me how this really happened! Let me ask you a question!

Me: DO YOU HAVE ANY CLUE HOW THIS ENDED UP IN THIS DRYER?

I waved the petite ball of excrement in front of her like a mad woman because I was a mad woman. And I was about to get an explanation, or I was going to the nuthouse for laundering poop.

Hmmmmm. Let’s see. She started tapping her chin with the pencil.

My little detective finally replied, “Well, I wasn’t gonna tell you, but Lucy pooped in the laundry room and then she ate most of it, but Nathan was with her when she did, and I took some out of his hand before he could eat it. He probably threw some into the dryer before I could take it away.”

Thank God!

Dog Crap! Yes! That’s my ticket to stay out of the nuthouse, at least for now! It doesn’t make doing laundry any more palatable, though.

The next time you’re doing the herpes of housework, keep this in mind. It could be worse.

Heather Burnett

Heather Burnett

Heather is a stay-at-home mom of three and suffers from STS (small town syndrome). She enjoys reality TV and hates to clean. When she's not trying to locate the other white sock, you can find her on Twitter or Facebook attempting to regain her sanity.
Heather Burnett

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One thought on “Toilet-Palooza & Things That Shouldn’t Be in the Laundry

  • March 10, 2017 at 2:42 pm
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    Heather, you are a riot! And it sounds like your sense of humor is the only thing that will keep you sane and keep you going. All your children will learn so many life lessons from your awesome attitude. Who knows what kinds of wonderful adults they are going to become!?

    Reply

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