Everybody Poops

No matter how hard some people try to deny it, everybody poops. Many of us have the luxury of flushing a toilet afterward, which is really pretty awesome if you think about it. Sometimes, the magical process of flushing is interrupted, and a clog in the toilet occurs. Although this can make a person sad, there is something called a plunger that can make everything all better. The real problem occurs when there is no plunger. This was my situation this morning. Sometimes Abuelo (grandpa) forgets that here in Costa Rica we do not put toilet paper in the toilet. This is interesting to me, because he has never lived anywhere else, but bless his little heart, he does it anyway. Today, I fell victim to following him in the bathroom, which means the toilet clogged after I was finished.

Given that we do not have a plunger, I walked 10 minutes to my aunt's house to borrow hers. No problem, right? Wrong. First of all, I needed to be at the school teaching Kindergarten in 20 minutes, and still hadn't showered after working out. Second of all, by the time I got the plunger it was covered in poop from the last time my aunt's family had used it. Third, when I finally got to my house to use it, it was of course the worst plunger ever made. It was stiff, and flipped inside out with every plunge, splattering EVERYTHING everywhere. As if turning inside out didn't spatter enough nasty-ness everywhere, it was even worse trying to get the thing right side out again. I finally got it to work, and went on with my day.

What's my point? Not surprisingly, I don't really have one. No, wait, I got it - this is just one of millions of examples of how everything takes sooooo much longer here, which is something I'm trying to get used to. Although I think it's lovely that people are much more "tranquilo" here, it does not always agree with my super-Type-A personality...but I'm trying to become more Type-T (Tico).

I am, however, going to buy a plunger for my family this afternoon. There are some things that I don't really want to develop more patience for, and fixing a toilet clog is one of those things.