DON'T Flush the Flushies!

Have you ever had one of those moments where you just wish you could go back in time and undo something stupid you did? Well I had that moment this week while I watched a disaster unfold.

Lil' J and I were going out to run a few quick errands, so instead of taking cloth diaper inserts with us, I thought it would be quick and easy to just grab one of the gDiaper flushie inserts I had in the closet.

Before she was born I bought eight bags of the stuff because Amazon had them on sale for a ridiculously low price at the time, plus I thought I was going to be using gDiapers. Anyway, they fit perfectly into our Sprout Change diaper covers so I just stuck one in there, buttoned her up, and off we went.

We went out and came back quicker than I thought, and before she had needed a diaper change but when we got home she was wet so I took her upstairs to change her.

Her changing table is against her bathroom wall so when I took the flushie insert out I tossed it into the toilet.

About a week before I had bought one of those blue bowl cleaning tablets to use in the toilet because it was looking pretty yucky. When I threw the insert in there I noticed it was still looking pretty yucky, but with blue water inside of it instead of clear. I made a mental note to look for our toilet bowl brush to give it a little scrub later.

I flushed the toilet to send the biodegradable liner down the drain when at about the same time I noticed it wasn't going down the drain, but coming back up towards me.

I let go of the lever to stop the flushing, and made another mental note to grab the liner out of the toilet before flushing again. Meanwhile, I was worried about Lil' J falling off the changing table, so I grabbed her and went to look for the scrub brush.

I'm not sure what happened next, but sometime between walking out of her room and into our room I forgot what I was doing, and ended up leaving the insert in the toilet.

Fast forward to later that night. I'm working on my computer and Lil' J needs a diaper change. I'm in the middle of writing an email so I beg my husband to change her so I can finish it up and spend the rest of the night chilling with them.

He takes her and heads up stairs when the next thing I know I hear my husband screaming "NO NO NO NO", and stomping his foot on the floor. I'm wondering what in the world is going on when I realize I hear the toilet flushing.

I run upstairs and see a horrifying scene. My daughter, half naked but thankfully strapped down to the changing table, probably in shock from her daddy's screaming. My husband straddled between the changing table and the bathroom, trying to turn off the water to the toilet. And worst of all, about an inch of bright blue water rising on the linoleum floor as what looks like gallons of water spills over the toilet.

I stood there in shock and prepared for the wrath that was about to come down on me.

"Did you take a dump in here?" My husband asked frankly.

"No." For one, I don't poop. And two, if I did, it surely wouldn't cause that. My third realization was that the evidence of my mistake wasn't visible. He didn't know I had tried to flush a diaper down the toilet. And now wasn't the time to confess.

"Why did you flush the toilet? Did you take a dump?" I wasn't sure what I was doing. Trying to turn it around on him I guess.

"No, he said."I noticed the toilet needed to be flushed so I flushed it. And when the water started coming up I was worried she'd fall off the changing table, so it took me forever to turn off the water." He was mad at himself for what happened. I felt bad, but not bad enough to tell him it was my fault.

I stood wide-eyed and horrified that he'd soon find my goof. I sure wasn't going to admit that I did it. I was completely fine with playing dumb.

By then our daughter was crying, so I picked her up and paced around upstairs, offering towels to my husband as he tried to soak up the man-made lake in our bathroom.

I kept hearing him spout things like "We must have a bad pipe" and "Maybe we could call maintenance."

I knew a maintenance worker was good for fixing our problem, but dad for keeping my secret a secret.

My husband instructed me to go down stairs and look for more old towels.

When I walked into the kitchen I heard what sounded like bugs crawling around our counter and hesitated a little. But when I looked in the direction of the strange sound I didn't see bugs. It was actually much worse. Blue water was dripping from a giant bulge in our ceiling.

Crap.

I turned around to go upstairs and tell my husband what was up downstairs and noticed the kitchen light was also full of blue water.

I'm a dead woman. I thought to myself.

I walked upstairs and told my husband the news downstairs and he asked me to call the emergency maintenance line. I listened to the message on the machine that said not to leave a message unless... And listed things like "your power is out" "your air conditioning or heater isn't working" and was happy when I heard "your house is flooding." I left a message but secretly hoped they wouldn't call back right away.

When my husband went downstairs to assess the damage on that level I saw that as my chance, I ran upstairs with Lil' J and grabbed the plunger to do some secret plunging. But it wasn't working. I couldn't get the dang diaper out.

I grabbed a plastic bag, put my arm inside and tried to reach as far as I could to maybe pull it out.

Nothing.

And that was gross.

I gave up and decided I deserved whatever scorning I would get once everyone knew it was I who clogged the toilet.

I was getting ready to leave for work to work the next day and was amazed at all of the work my husband had done to clean up my mess. The floor looked like it was never flooded, the carpet outside the bathroom was no longer wet, or blue. And he had poked a hole in the drooping ceiling and drained out the water from the bottom floor.

When I got home my husband told me the maintenance guy came by and fixed our toilet, and emptied our kitchen light of water.

"Oh yea?" I asked my husband, curious if they'd found the culprit of the disaster.

"Yea, he had a giant plunger thing and unclogged everything."

I'm guessing either he pushed everything through, or pulled it all out but didn't dissect the remanence because he didn't ask why in the world I tried to flush a diaper down the toilet, even though, to my defense it says "flushie" and "flush" on the package.

I haven't admitted my mistake. I think it's still too soon. But one day, when the time is right. This will definitely be one of those "hey, remember the time when..." conversations.