Category: bathroom humor

The Right Tool for Every Residence

This past weekend, I found myself kneeling by the side of my bathtub pouring extra super thick double maxx Liquid Plumr down the drain.

The thing didn’t even gurgle back at me it was so clogged up. Not that the drain on this sad ol’ tub ever worked that well to begin with. The strands of my luxurious mane are, sadly, more than it can take.

As I sat back on my heels waiting for that satisfying gurgle/sigh that pipe gives off when it’s cleared, I thought about how every damn place I’ve lived since the moment I set foot in the State of California has had plumbing issues.

Every. Single. One.

The first place where I unpacked my bags in Cali was in Sunnyvale. It was a cheery little eight unit building with a landlord so cheap he made Abe Lincoln on the penny squeak. He wasn’t a bad guy, he was just a massive tightwad.

My next door neighbors, two over tanned ex-hippies, came over to my place to welcome me to the building. They also presented me with a gift, saying, “Trust us, you’ll need it.”

This was the gift:





Isn’t she a beauty? Yes, I still have her some fifteen years later. This little black beauty has been my guardian. My savior. My favorite tool.

That plunger has unclogged toilets, sinks and disposers across the Greater Bay Area.

I thought of my old friend as I gazed into the drain of the sad, blocked bathtub that fills with water halfway up my shins when I take a shower. I wished old Black Beauty could step into service on this problem. She has a magic touch. Sadly I was unable to get her assistance on this one.

It took an entire bottle of the Plumr to finally get some movement in that damn drain. It’s ostensibly fixed, but still slow as molasses running in an uphill direction on a cold January day.

But the toilet, that flushes like a champion. That’s cuz Black Beauty is standing guard.
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Yes. I wrote an entire blog post about a plunger.

Happy Friday.






As I’m sure everyone wants to rip off my photo of a plunger, I am obligated to tell you that it is Copyright 2012, Karen Fayeth, and subject to the Creative Commons license found in the right column of this page. Taken with an iPhone 4s, the Camera+ app, and love.



You Scream, I Do Something Else Entirely — For Ice Cream

It’s a blisteringly hot summer day in Albuquerque and mom has hauled her three monkey children to the swimming pool at the Coronado Club (inside of Kirtland Air Force Base) to cool off and work off some energy.

I’ve swam and swam until all my digits are little prunes and then I swim a little bit more for good measure. Exhausted, I finally drag myself out of the pool to lay on the scalding hot concrete and let the sun dry chlorinated water from my arms and legs.

Mom is out in the grassy area surrounding the pool reading a book or chatting with friends. She always finds a lot of folks she knows at the Coronado Club. She’s been coming here since she was just eighteen.

I find my mom and plop into a lawn chair with my beach towel. Starving, I gulp down a sandwich or some cold fried chicken or whatever fun stuff mom has packed into the ice chest.

As the late afternoon sun begins to cast slanted shadows on the ground, if I’m lucky and have been a good kid, I’ll ask my mom for some money and she’ll agree. Cash in hand, I’ll dash to the food stand and procure a soft serve vanilla or chocolate ice cream in a cone.

I’ll bear the thing proudly, like Lady Liberty and her torch, then I’ll savor every last drippy bite.

Ah, summer and ice cream were made for each other.

However, lately, something dark and insidious rumbles inside of me, irrevocably breaking the summer fun and ice cream connection.

Seems I’ve developed a little ol’ thing called lactose intolerance.




It ain’t right. It’s some cosmic comedy, it has to be. Dairy and I are friends from way back. Ok, I can’t stand fluid milk, but sour cream, all manner of cheese, ice cream and half and half in my coffee are what make walking in this mean old world seem tolerable.

The Good Man marvels still at the vast array of dairy products I have in my fridge. I have a whole drawer devoted to cheese! Well, I used to…

Me? Lactose intolerant? It just isn’t even funny. Not one little bit.

I took my concerns to my doctor who nodded thoughtfully and said, “Well, you know, that happens pretty frequently to people over the age of forty. It’s common as we age.”

Great. That makes me feel ever so much better.

I use Lactaid and it helps some. It is, at best, an imperfect solution.

The only real cure is to stop eating dairy entirely.

Well that ain’t gonna happen.

That said, I have cut waaaaay back. And because the universe has a really excellent sense of humor, I also get rumbly tummy from soy milk, the most common substitute.

So far hemp milk and almond milk are my frontrunners for adding to coffee and having an ice cream-like treat.

They are fine, but just…not the same.

“I scream, you scream, we all scream for almond milk iced dessert” just doesn’t have the same ring.

Because we don’t all scream for that.

*sigh*




Image is, of course, The Scream by Edvard Munch, and is used under Fair Use as the image is considered Public Domain in the United States.

This week’s Theme Thursday is: ice cream



Waiting — (The Oversharing Edition)

So, yeah, this is going to be a less than politically correct post.

Turn away if that sort of thing bothers you.

You see, I’m sitting here…waiting.

I have a little infection, minor really (absolutely nothing to worry about), and my doctor prescribed me a “short course” of antibiotics.

Quick and easy.

Except.

The pharmacist, when handing me the script said “So…this can cause diarrhea. Take it with food. You can take a probiotic if you wish, that might help. It doesn’t happen to everyone.”

So I said “ok.” Shrugged. Walked away.

Then I read the fact sheet that comes with the script.

It must have used the D word 82 times in three pages.

And the bottle. When I took my second pill this morning, I saw on the bottle it has, in large letters “may cause” and the D word.

So. Um. Even if I’m not the sort of person this might happen to, I think all the warnings have certainly auto-suggested my brain (and body) that this is inevitable.

No way to avoid it.

No hope.

Right now, outside my window, dark, angry storm clouds are rolling in.

And in my tummy, after three doses, so far calm seas.

But can I escape this fate? Can I just have a nice “short course” of antibiotics, have no issues and call it a day?

Is that even possible?

If you see me go running by, you’ll know the answer.

Until then. I just have to wait and see.






Image from Demotivational Blog



The Earth Has Turned

I suppose it’s time for me, a summer lovin’ sunshine dancin’ kind of a gal, to admit that it is, in fact, winter. Or at least very late Fall.

The weather has turned. It’s getting a bit colder.

And so I present the surest sign of winter. In the same way they yank a startled Punxsutawney Phil from his burrow, here is my own animal based divination tool:

A cat with her butt on the heater vent.

Not just any heater vent, the best vent in the house. It’s a cut out in the bathroom cabinets and the ten pound animal steals all the heat. While taking a shower on a rather cold damp morning, I might wish to enjoy the heat from that vent. That would be a no.

As soon as the heat kicks on, there she’ll be.



It starts out with a simple “oh hey, that’s not bad.” Just the back end getting toasty. It’s simple. Demure.




Once the tail region has achieved critical warmness, then a self-satisfied flop ensues.





I don’t even know what to say at this point. I’m almost offended. (and if I think about the physics of the thing….the warm air is headed straight up Broadway, right? Can that even be comfortable?)




“What?”




Grace. Class. Dignity. None of those words can be used to describe my feline.



All photos Copyright 2011, Karen Fayeth and subject to the Creative Commons license found in the far right column of this page. Photos taken with my brand spankin’ new iPhone 4s and the Camera+ app.


My Bounceback Done Gone

First of all…I’m glad to be back on the interwebs. The hotel where I’m staying this week is supposed to have free WiFI, and in the past, it’s always been great, allowing me to surf and do email with ease.

During this week it’s been dog slow. At one point it took a half hour for a page to load. For three days I’ve been begging someone to restart the router on my floor and this netted me many a blank stare from the hotel staff.

They finally gave me a tech support number and the nice tech support guy in another country diagnosed my technical issues. And then he restarted the router. Sheesh!

Aaaaaanyhow….

Along with interweb woes, I’ve been living it up a little on the road food. (see my abject joy of Sonic post).

Lately (meaning, prior to this trip) I’ve been trying to eat small meals several times a day. Good small meals with lots of lean protein and less sugar along with going easy on the dairy, and no gluten.

God I’m getting old. Look at that paragraph above. Sheesh.

But…when I do all of that and throw in a little exercise, I feel pretty good. I sleep well. My brain is clear. I have energy.

Today, I had to endure a daylong training class. I did nothing more than sit on my rear all day. No exercise and boooooring. So to pass the time I poured milk in my coffee (bloat) and had a pastry from the oh too pretty plate of goodies (tummy gurgle) and ate a sizeable lunch on top (*burp*).

Now I’m all bloated up like Violet Beauregarde (the one who swelled up into a blueberry and had to be juiced) and wondering just what in the heck possessed me when I know better?

As I said to the good man via a whiny text message….”A few minutes of :) for several days of :( Ugh!”

Ugh, indeed.

It didn’t used to be like this. I used to be able to eat dairy and wheat and fats of all sorts of saturation with reckless abandon!

Where did it all go wrong?

I aged. That’s where it all went wrong. At 22 I could bounce back from a journey down cheesey tater tot lane in about a day. Now it takes me many days and some hard work and diligence just to come back to even.

*sigh*

Thus ends my whining for the day.

I know, I know…ya’ll went two days without a blog post for this? Hmph!

I’ll try harder tomorrow.