So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter.
~Gordon W. Allport
It was Papa who flushed the toilet. Mama said that was his biggest mistake ever.
Papa had a doctor’s appointment that morning, and he was in the house getting ready. Mama knew we had a friend coming over to knock down our old brick well house, which was too small. He had told Papa if we ever needed to have work done on the well or the pump, there would be a problem because there was just no room to work in there. Papa wanted to make sure we never had that problem and decided to have the small brick well house torn down and a bigger well house built around the equipment.
Mama decided to check and make sure nothing needed to be moved out of the old well house. She told us she removed the top, looked in and saw about a gazillion spiders, which she knew had to be black widow spiders because they were… well, black. Not wanting to bother Papa or make our friend mess with the spiders, she decided to get rid of them herself. She had the perfect solution… or so she thought. Mama took a bug bomb, opened the top of the well house, clicked on the bug bomb, dropped it in the small brick structure and slammed the top back down.
Mama had just reentered our house when… ka-boom! When the windows stopped rattling, she heard Papa yell, “What the…!” and the phone was ringing. Mama went for the phone because, as she said, it sounded like Papa was, well, busy.
“Did you hear that explosion?” an excited neighbor hollered in her ear.
“Uhh… well, yeah,” Mama said as she glanced out the window. The pump was wobbling back and forth, but thankfully it was still in place. “I… uhh… I have to check on… I’ll call you back.”
About thirty minutes later, our friend arrived. “I thought you needed me to tear down the well house. It’s gone, and there are bricks all over your yard. Have the grandkids been playing with the old bricks?”
Papa turned around, raised an eyebrow, looked at Mama and then back at him. “Yep, it’s gone alright. Seems my wife decided to give you a little bit of help this morning.” Then he proceeded to explain what happened. I listened because I was curious, too.
He explained calmly, “I was in the bathroom, sitting down, minding my own business. I reached behind me and flushed the toilet. That flicked the switch in the well house. The switch sparked and ignited the fumes from the bug bomb. There was an explosion so powerful that it blew up the well house, sending bricks all over the yard. It also sent the water pressure from the water pump back through the pipes and up through the toilet, nearly knocking me off the throne.”
After hearing the explanation, I can honestly say I have to side with Mama. Papa was the one who flushed the toilet and blew up the well house. All Mama did was kill the spiders.
~Debbie Sistare
