On those days you are having a bad day take comfort. There is always someone else having one just a wee bit worse than you.
Humor me for a moment as I prove my point.
When I left the house early this morning, there was some leftover pizza in a box rotting next to driver's side seat. And I knew this to be true because the weather has only been hovering around, say 430 degrees, for the last week with the humidex (or whatever that thing's called). So I took the pizza box and did what came to mind first. I put it in the camper.
Fortunately, the camper's refrigerator was plugged in so this should have potentially kept the pizza at bay, bacteria frozen in their spot until I came home at supper. But when I opened the camper door, the fumes that come rushing up my nostrils were enough to burn the nose hairs off forevermore, thus causing me to forget about preserving the pizza and now invest my energy into salvaging air quality in the camper.
The problem seemed to originate from the toilet in the camper. Need I say anymore?
To make a long story short, we went camping last week at the beautiful Mill River Camp Ground in the lovely Mill River area of western P.E.I.. And as enjoyable as nature is and all: I like my sewage system. And I like it a lot.
Tragically, there wasn't a camping lot left on the grounds with one to be found. So, Hubby told the nice lady at the counter he 'would have to talk to his wife'. ('Cause he knows how much I really love my sewage.) Being as I was directly behind him eavesdropping at the time, I immediately looked at him. And I was so desperate to get out of the house because I knew the kids would be at me for this and for that and for about 50 million other things. That I said, 'yes, let's take it without the sewage'.
Famous last words.
Thankfully, we did make a good judgment call, parking the camper near the bathrooms. All weekend long, I was like the 'potty police'. If any kid said, "I havva goooo the bafffroom..." I would tell them, "Get your buns over there to the public bathroom. And get a move on."
I watched them like a hawk. All day long. And then evening came. And it started to get dark. And it was night before we all knew it. And I found myself sitting at the campfire swatting a million mosquitoes that were buzzing around my head. And in so doing, I completely forgot that the kids had been eating marshmallows all night.
I forgot about the toilet.
I was blissfully unaware that the blessed toilet was getting plugged up with a weekend's worth of junk food gone foul.
It wouldn't be until we got home on Sunday morning, when I walked into the camper again later that day, that I would smelled it: the smell of a thousand rotten s'mores decaying in my toilet. And it wouldn't be until precisely that moment that I would say to Hubby, "We need to fumigate this camper." Wherein, he being the loving husband that he is, would then pull the camper up to "the spot" back by the barn where he would then unleash the fury into the ground. A spot I lovingly call the armpit of Mill River.
And it wouldn't be until then that we would thankfully go along on our merry way. Ignorance is bliss.
Long story short. I went back into the camper again an hour later. Realized the smell was still there and thus initiated Rescue Operation "Save This Camper," kicking it into high gear. Yes indeed. One hour later, and it smelled so.much.worse. So, what did we do? Get the plunger. I didn't even know until that precise moment that one could plunge a toilet without water in it.
Hubby plunged and I coached from outside the camper. And we thought we had the problem licked.
Fast forward to nearly a week later. Picture me with a rotten pizza box in one hand, the other hand bracing my body as the nose hairs curl up inside my head. For that is how I started my day today.
How it ended?
I came home from my summer Masters course only to discover, my youngest telling me in whispers as I shuttled them all into the van for soccer practices: the veranda had caught on fire, leaving behind a gaping two foot by two foot hole in the floor.
And that was my day in a nutshell.
I tell all this only to say: there is certainly someone else out there with far worse problems than mine. And as soon as I am done writing this blog piece I intend to google that person and thank my lucky stars- that I am 'me' and not 'them'.
And then I'll have to plunge the toilet.