Sunday Afternoon

There are times when being a single parent is challenging and rewarding. There are times when I want to kill myself with a rock. I shall explain.

Yesterday, while Echo was taking a bath (which I bade her do, she was getting gamey), I was attempting to take a nap to recover from a very early morning waking. Orie came to me in a panic stating that the toilet was making weird noises. You do not want your toilet doing anything but contentedly swooshing away poo, so this concerned me and I came immediately to investigate.

It was not the toilet (for which I was grateful) but the downstairs shower...the water from the upstairs tub was backing up into as it was draining. This is not a new phenomenon; there was no reason to panic. I shouted to Echo to replace the plug in the tub drain.

"What?"
The water is now rising in the shallow shower pan.
"Put the plug back!" Gurgle, gurgle, the water is still rising.
"What??!!"
Orie and me in unison: "PUT THE PLUG BACK IN THE DRAIN!!"
I run upstairs, and of course the bathroom door is locked. "ECHOGODAMMIT PUT THE FRICKING PLUG BACK IN!!"
"Oh." The water level remains constant. Two minutes later, I hear the shower running, she is refilling the bathtub.
"ECHO TURN THE F'ING WATER OFF!!"
Orie is now pounding on the bathroom door. The shower is turned off.
I begin plunging activity, uselessly of course. The water in the shower is brackish and stinks of sewer, it is totally disgusting.

I react responsibly and take the kids out for sushi, return to find the water in the shower has drained, so I carry out the trick that usually clears the drain- baking soda and vinegar. It does not work. I let a little more water out of the upstairs tub, just enough to fill the shower pan below. I invite Raissa over for Lemon Drops.

My judgement is not what it should be when enjoying Lemon Drops with Raissa, she is an Irish Lass who can drink me under the table, I should not attempt to keep up with her, but I did that night, and we ended up having Too Many.

The next day, I received advice from a Man Who Can Fix Things about clearing the pipe. It unhappily involves removing the cap on the pipe in the basement and the use of a plumber's snake. I can hardly contain my joy at the thought of this task. I call aforementioned Irish Lass to inquire as whether she has a tool that might remove such an a thing as a pipe cap. She does not, however, she gamely offers to accompany me to the National Warehouse Chain Hardware store to purchase the necessary items and will assist me in my pipe unclogging activities. She is also hungover.

We drive to said store with offending child in tow, consult Plumbing Section Professional as to our needs. He hooks us up with a pipe wrench and a snake, also gestures to the bottle of un-clogging chemical that is so toxic is it wrapped in a plastic bag such that the nastiness inside cannot kill you with one touch as you merely transport the bottle to the register. The bottle has a skull and crossbones on it, very proudly announcing that is indeed "POISON!!!" and will drop you like a bug in zapper should you so much as look at it sideways. Should you attempt to use this product without the use of 6mm thick PVC hand protection and a containment suit it will cheerily melt your skin off leaving only your gleaming bones and dental fillings. It claims "Guaranteed to work!". This blithe confidence scares the shit out of me and I decline the purchase.

On the way home, we stop at Skanky Beer Store since the only thing getting us through this experience shall be Hair of the Dog. While in Skanky Beer Store, I randomly run into my ex, returning his bottles. Said BabyDaddy also has my Channel Lock pliers, which may have been used to loosen the pipe cap. I chose to drive to National Chain Hardware store to avoid contact with said sperm donor. Just lucky I guess.

Back at home, Irish Lass and I begin attempting snaking activity at the offending drain, thinking this could be the shortest route to the problem. It turns out, there is a reason plumbers charge for this: it is hard. We wrap up the snake up in knots several times, between fits of giggles and swigs of pale ale, having inserted only about 1o inches total into the drain. We decide to take on the pipe cap below, we descend with the pipe wrench and a bucket.

The pipe cap does not budge; it is original to the construction of the home, which makes it 800 years old. It has become one with the pipe end and no amount of pulling, tapping with hammer, and just downright hanging on it with our full weight will move it. In technical terms, it is "Buggered".

We administer a final application of baking soda/vinegar treatment in hopes that our efforts have at least amused the clog enough to move slightly and allow water out. It works not.

I bail water from shower, let remaining tub water out. I have not showered yet. I have brushed my teeth twice but it isn't helping. I look like an aging bar-hag with very bad hair. I probably smell worse.

Meanwhile, Echo has been watching Food TV, and has decided that she needs to make chocolate eclairs. She is up my ass all day about the eclairs. Holy shit, she is going to DIE if she can't make the eclairs and furthermore I am probably the worst parent in the universe and I have doomed her to 20 years of therapy if she cannot make the fucking eclairs. I relent.

I purchase her ingredients, set up Kitchen-Aid Mixer. Minutes later there is a crash of glass and a little girl screaming bloody murder punctuated with screeched assertions of "It's not my fault!!" I run into the kitchen and find that a Pyrex bowl full of water and butter has been placed on the stove-top burner on HIGH, the bowl is shattered and broken glass and butter are sizzling on the burner. I calmly turn off stove, and begin picking up pieces of glass from the floor. The girl retires to the couch to silently freak out for 20 minutes over her near-death experience. With the patience of a saint, I evenly explain to her that perhaps we may try making eclairs on another day. She nods, clutching her heart.

There are positive things here: I have great friends who will spend their hungover day off helping with me with a decidedly unsavory project. I have a child who who likes to bake because she wants to share yummy things with other people and who bravely tried to create a solution on her own. Mostly, I have a toilet that still merrily flushes, every single time I need it to. I am stinky; but I can pee whenever I want to. Namaste.

Them

So it occurred to me this evening, as I was sequestered on the love seat in the corner reading about how wretchedly unprepared I am for retirement, I don't actually have kids anymore-- I live with these two people.

They live in my house, and they are not guests, they are not room mates; they are dependents but they are no longer tiny little tots that required occasional re-direction-- they are humans with whom I cohabitate.

They are still in grade school, but dammit, they are BIG. They have these huge feet and order from the adult menu. They now comfortably navigate the PG-13 film with none of the discomfort I feel when "sex" is mentioned 18 times. They have daunting school assignments that I wonder that I could have completed easily at their ages. They are aware of global warming, they can positively identify many countries that are located in Asia, they have faced death, racism, sexism, divorce, dementia. They promote ecology, energy efficiency, charity, global awareness. They have distinct opinions on why Britney Spears shaved her head and render strikingly accurate psychological evaluations.

Who are they?? Who are these individuals who now live with me? I am not a sloppy/lovey clutcher of babies, I do not miss the babies that they once were in spite of every procreating female over the age of 30 who INSISTED that I would. I didn't. I don't. I don't thrive on being the epicenter of dependency; these people cook, clean, and manage their money.

They are productive citizens. Which is what I always thought I would attempt to create, persons who seek to connect to their community, who feel that they are not the top of the food chain, not hopelessly separated from the environment, from nature, from life.

They are smart people, they determined on their own that they did not believe in a traditional Judeo-Christian god, they are moral (mostly) and scrupulous and curious.
And their fucking questions are getting harder for me to answer without a least a 15 minute Internet search.

These people will be here for about another 10, maybe 12 years. I think I will be able to live with them until then. In only a few more years, so I gather from the teen-aged people who live with some of my friends, they will not really want much of my time. They will commune with other people of their ilk. Then, soon enough, they will leave and it will be as if they were never here.

But of course they will return, in all of their grown-up person-hood, to tell me...