Dixie Cups Are Not The Equivalent Of Poo

Some of you know that I am extremely arachnophobic (for those that don't, there's your useless piece of information for the day). I hate spiders. Hate them. Big, small, hairy, spindly, I do not care, if they have eight legs, they are the spawn of Satan as far as I am concerned. My arachnophobia is so bad that if I am within 10 feet of a spider, I become paralyzed. I just stand there, staring at the thing until it either goes away or I figure out a way to dispose of it (and by figure out a way to dispose of it, I mean yell "HUBBY" hysterically at the top of my lungs until my husband comes and kills it for me).

But sometimes, Hubby is not always present when I have a spider situation, and I am forced to deal with it myself. This usually involves my pretending that the spider does not exist (this is possible if the spider has situated itself in a nice corner somewhere, and doesn't seem interested in relocating any time soon), or, lately, and since I always seem to encounter spiders in the bathroom, my trapping them in a Dixie cup and then shaking them into the toilet bowl where I then flush them to their watery death.

So yesterday morning when a big nasty spider had the audacity to drop from the ceiling within a couple of feet of where I was standing, I immediately grabbed a Dixie Cup (after I finished screaming of course, and checking myself to make sure that no trace of web/spider had actually made physical contact) and caught the little bugger mid-drop. I then rushed to the toilet to get rid of the Big Nasty before he could escape.

And do you know what that spider had the nerve to do? He attached himself via spider web to the cup, so that when I went to go shake him into the toilet, he just hung their in mid-air. So I shook him again, and this time he started to climb back up his little web of survival and headed straight for my hand, which was still holding the cup.

This resulted in my second arachnophobe freak-out of the morning. I have now lost all sense of calm and rationality, and I am just trying to kill the Big Nasty at any cost. I begin madly shaking the cup, and think that I've managed to get the Big Nasty into the toilet, so I flush, but then realize that the Big Nasty is STILL attached to the cup and is now dangerously close to ME. I completely freak-out, and drop the cup into the toilet.

And then after I drop the cup, I realize that the toilet is still in the process of flushing.

I have a split second to think "It should be okay--the Dixie Cup won't fit down the opening in the toilet bowl that leads to the pipe" before the Dixie Cup disappears along with Big Nasty into the watery unknown of wherever it is that toilet bowl flushings go after you flush.

Yes, people, I have just flushed a Dixie Cup down the toilet. And I have no idea what to do about it. And I am late for work.

But then I have an idea. I take out another Dixie Cup, and examine it carefully. "Yes," I think. "This is about the same size as some poo. Maybe it could fit after all."

So I give the toilet another flush to see if the Dixie Cup appears to have made it safely through the plumbing, or is still stuck somewhere in the pipe. And I really should have just left well enough alone.

The Dixie Cup was obviously still stuck somewhere in the pipe, because the water reaches almost overflow level, and just when I think I better start getting some towels to clean up the impending mess, the water is suddenly whooshed down the bowl, the toilet starts making weird gurgly noises, and bubbles start coming up from where the water is supposed to go out.

I get the plunger, hoping that maybe if I can't help the Dixie Cup along to its final destination, then maybe I can at least get it to come back to its point of origin. But the Dixie Cup is definitely stuck.

I do not have time to call a plumber, so I decide I will have to call one after work. I put a note on the toilet seat in case Hubby beats me home, and then try to figure out how I'm going to tell him that I screwed up our plumbing in a manner worse than most kids could manage. I decide I will call Hubby (who had to leave early this morning to take my car in for a 6:15 a.m. maintenance appointment that I took the liberty of making for him) when I get to work, and that way maybe he'll have some time to cool off before he gets home.

As I am walking out the door to go to work, I see Hubby coming in from the garage. Oh goody! The appointment was quicker than the estimated time we were given, and Hubby had enough time to come home before heading to work himself! I have no choice but to tell him in person. From the look on his face, it appears that Hubby can't decide whether to laugh or cry. He just tells me to have a good day at work and he'll see me tonight. Off to work I go, wondering how many hundreds of dollars that Dixie Cup is going to cost me.

I got a call later in the day from Hubby. He was able to fix the toilet. He wasn't even that mad about it, but I did get a lecture on alternative methods of spider disposal.

So all things considered, I think it worked out pretty well.

But that, people, is why Dixie Cups are not the equivalent of poo.