“Aunt Naomi, what’s for dinner?” Shanti asked as she came into the room, wrapping her good arm around our legs and then heading toward the stools that sat in front of the small breakfast bar.
Knowing she’d struggle to get up onto one with her arm in the cast and sling, I released Naomi and moved to pick her up before placing her carefully on the top of the stool.
“Thanks, Carter. You’re the best.”
“It’s spaghetti tonight,” Naomi told her as she crossed over to the stove and dumped in a box of pasta. “Well, technically, it’s swirly noodles because I didn’t realize we didn’t have any spaghetti, but the sauce is the same.”
“Sorry, I used all the spaghetti.”
Both of us stopped at Shanti’s apology and turned to look at her, waiting for an explanation.
“I wanted to play pooh sticks, but I’d already pooped, and we don’t have a river, so I used spaghetti and the toilet.”
Why, someone please tell me why did kids obsess about the bathroom? Specifically, the toilet. I’d asked Alex, DB, Raoul, and as many of the Townsends I could find who wouldn’t still be doing the same thing themselves, i.e., Brett. I couldn’t remember ever having the same fascination or even using the bathroom as much as Shanti did, and especially announcing it the way she did.
Their responses had been much the same: shit happens/they grow out of it/watch out for them putting things down it/get a good plumber/wait until you have more than one doing it at the same time.
“Uh…” Naomi squatted down in front of her. “Did you flush a whole pack of spaghetti down the toilet?”
Shanti nodded happily. “I did.”
I wasn’t sure what’d happen to uncooked pasta in the sewer or if it got stuck in the pipes, but I hoped it wasn’t anything catastrophic. Mental images of “the shitter’s full” scene from National Lampoons Christmas Vacation started playing in my mind the more I thought about it.
“Have you flushed anything else down there?” Naomi asked, looking worriedly at me like she expected me to have answers.
“Oh, yes. I tried shampoo to stop the stink, but it didn’t work. I also put the broccoli you tried to get me to eat the other day down there.” This kid sounded so much older as she listed it all. “I put one of the torpedoes I found in your bathroom down it, too.”
“Torpedo?”
“Yeah, they had them in a movie I watched with Nemi. I found one in your bathroom and tried it, ‘cos that’s what Uncle Bond said they were when we found one at his house.”
So. Many. Questions.
Naomi was nervously chewing on her lip, so I asked, “What movie were you watching?”
I probably should have led with the kind of torpedoes, but for me, it was easier narrowing down how she’d known about them and then figure out what she’d used.
“It was one of the James Bond ones, and there was a big poop with people on it.”
Again with the poop. It was an obsession. Was there a child therapist who dealt with this stuff? Maybe I should look into it?
“Do you mean a submarine?”
Shanti wrinkled her nose. “Maybe? Uncle Bond said it was something like that, but I thought it looked like a poop.”
Clearing her throat, Naomi finally asked slowly, “Where did you find the torpedo at Aunt Heidi’s house?”
“In her purse. Uncle Bond said it was a torpedo and meant war was coming.”
Jesus.
“But you’ve got them, too, Aunt Naomi. I found a whole box in your bathroom when I was looking for—”
She stopped talking so suddenly and looked so guilty that Naomi’s eyes narrowed on her.
“What were you looking for?”
Shanti’s shoulders dropped. “The toilet sucker you used when it got blocked.”
Naomi straightened, looking almost panicked. “Why did you need that?”
“To get my shoe back.”
The almost panicked turned to totally panicked. “Which shoe? Where was it stuck?”
“In the toilet. I stood in shi-Shinola outside because someone didn’t pick up their dog’s poop. My poop-a-doop goes in there, so I put my shoe in so it would, too.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, torn between laughing and pulling my phone out to see if this was normal. It couldn’t be!
“You cleaned your shoe in the toilet?”
“Yup. Smart, huh?”
I lost the control I had over the laughter and had to turn away from them. Fortunately, I managed to do it silently, the only giveaway being the change to my breathing.
“Did you get the shoe back?”
“I wore it today.”
Naomi’s response to that was a groan. “And how did you step in poop? Was it in our front yard?”
“Nope. Nemi’s dog did it, but I didn’t want him to get into trouble, so I stayed quiet when I was in Uncle Bond’s car.”
I couldn’t wait to tell him.
“Back to the torpedo—I don’t have anything that looks like one of those. Did you flush it away?”