It’s not just that this bathroom smells like a swamp. It’s also that there is always mud in the sink, from boys playing out back in the pit I told them to “not get in or else,” and, of course, they thought they’d try their hand at the “or else,” because mud and boys and fun, and then coming in to wash their hands (if they bother at all). It’s also that there are soggy toilet paper rolls in the trash can, because one of the 3-year-olds decided it would be funny to put one in the sink and turn on the water and watch it “turn curly.” (At least this is what we hope he did. Nothing has been confirmed, because when you ask a 3-year-old “What happened?” you’re likely to hear all about a roly poly out in the backyard that they put into the cracks between the porch rails and how they fell on their booty but it didn’t hurt and then they ate some popcorn that you know you didn’t make today but they probably found tucked into the couch from the last movie night three weeks ago. But, all things considered, I’d rather assume it’s not potty water that soaked the toilet paper roll and the floor and mostly his white monster shirt that he refused to take off because “I LOVE THIS MONSTER AND HE NEEDS ME TO WEAR HIM AND HE’S MY FRIEND AND I DON’T CARE IF MY SHIRT IS WET.” I didn’t feel like arguing for 36 hours, so I let it be.)
It’s also that there are these gigantic spit balls leering at me from the ceiling every time I dare to think I might use this bathroom instead of making the long trip upstairs to my no-boys-allowed one.
This bathroom is the guest bathroom. I am always, ALWAYS embarrassed when someone’s over and they say, “I’ll be right back” and I see them heading for it. I always want to give a disclaimer or some kind of warning that will encompass everything that has happened in this bathroom. It doesn’t matter how many times Husband cleans it (because I have a sensitive gag reflex). It doesn’t matter how recently that cleaning happened. It doesn’t matter if none of the boys have even used it since that cleaning. They have left their marks everywhere. Most notably, now, the ceiling.
We’re not really sure which one did this little prank. We’re only sure that it’s been there for three weeks now, because Husband and I are just.too.tired to try to scrape giant spit balls off the ceiling.
I’m sure it was so much fun. I imagine one of them closing and locking themselves into this bathroom under the guise of needing to “go number two,” because they knew it would buy them some time. And it probably wasn’t even premeditated. They were probably washing their hands and looked over at the perfectly fine toilet paper roll hanging beside the toilet and then the other used-to-be-perfectly-fine-but-is-now-soggy toilet paper roll dripping in the trash can and then, innocently enough, looked up at the ceiling. Then back at the soggy roll and back at the ceiling and back again. It was such a perfectly white, untouched space. I imagine he tore off a small piece of that soggy toilet paper and tossed it up with all the force his little 5-year-old body could muster, just to see if it would stick. And it did. And then he realized it worked, and this would be a REALLY fun game, and he waved his older brothers in and they all started playing this fun game called “How Big a Spitball Can We Make Stick to the Ceiling.”
And before we even knew what was happening, we had a ceiling full of gigantic spit balls.
I remember the lure of this game when I was a kid. My brother would put bigger and bigger wads of wet paper into a straw and launch it toward the ceiling. Boys at school would do it while the teacher’s back was turned, and the boys with the biggest wads that stuck AND went unnoticed by the teacher got the most points. I never did understand its entertainment. It just made me shudder a little, walking under all that spit. Maybe that was the point.
My brother and the boys at school never got such an impressive wad of toilet paper to stick to a ceiling, which has me looking for the biggest spit ball record in the Guinness Book of World Records. I’m pretty sure my kids are close.
