My son’s, “WAIT DAD,” didn’t register with me earlier this evening as I leaned heavily and with great frustration on the flush handle of the kids’ bathroom while shouting a warning of, “Please flush the toilet when you have finished doing your business…you’re old enough to know better.”

As I was right at the “old enough to know better,” part, winding up for a bigger lecture, I realized that the water and everything in it were rising steadily and rapidly. The water was cascading over the seat before I even started racing to the other bathroom for the only plunger in the house.

More seepage. What is it with this house and its sudden affinity for misplaced water? 15 minutes, 3 large towels (which I will obviously have to douse with Kerosene and set on fire) and a half bottle of Clorox later, I left the bathroom, light headed from the Clorox fumes, and waving an emotional white flag on the day. 

“Wow, dad, you really swore,” is what my daughter mentioned as I tucked her in. I made a brief effort to explain my outburst as simply an impassioned description of what I saw, but thought better of it, knowing full well that argument would come back to haunt me. I apologized, closed her door, and then booted the dog out of the bathroom, who was gleefully licking the one section of the floor not triple coated with bleach. (And for this discriminating gourmet, my wife insists I clean out his water bowl every morning).

Today, was truly a “my bowl runneth over” type of day. One of those days where you desperately  take your plunger to your mobile phone and inbox and try to stem the tide before you run out of beach towels.

But, no one died. The kids made it to school and back with smiles and no accounts of small arms fire, drug busts, brawls in handwork class, or lewd and lascivious behavior in eurhythmy (it’s a Waldorf school, how bad could it get). They even assured me that they had learned something. The dry rooms in our house still outnumber the wet or damp ones, though barely. The piano is in tune. We’re healthy, although the dog is starting to look a little green.  My shoes will be dry by morning.

 So I will sleep soundly and with gratitude. And tomorrow I will embrace the day, eyes wide open, plunger at the ready.