"Does This Smell Remind You Of The South Of France...In The Middle Ages?"

[dr_pretentious]

It turns out those "flushable" wipes that are advertised for potty training aren't flushable. All right, you can flush them, if you don't mind calling your plumber for an emergency visit to your flooded basement. We'll be sending the bill to the Pampers corporate headquarters.

Dan and I have spent the past several days decontaminating the basement. There are lots of objects I won't miss--the odd bits of furniture abandoned by the previous owners of the house, the mountain of cardboard we hadn't gotten around to bundling for recycling pick-up--but I am a little melancholy about my old prom dress. Not that I'd looked at it in well over a decade, nor was I ever likely to fit into it again. I had imagined I would eventually reach some Buddhist-enlightenment-like approach to de-cluttering, and I'd give it to one of those organizations that gets prom dresses to girls who couldn't otherwise afford them. Putting it on the curb is definitely not what I had in mind.

Thinking about the several days of lost writing time is worse, though. Writing time is one thing I actually had a regular habit of using.

Meanwhile, we take turns entertaining our toddler to free each other up for cleaning. On the first day of the flood clean-up, Gareth really enjoyed our Bowdlerized version of that Monty Python bit about how you can tell who the king is because he's the only one not covered in poop, and we've had many requests for repeat performances. Come September, his preschool teacher will probably not thank us for this.

Comments

[showingup.livejournal.com]

Oh no! You'd been thinking of clearing up all your crap, and THEN YOU HAD TO! And it's in the basement!

The layers of symbolism (not to mention the excrement) here!

It sounds horrible. I'm sure it will all turn out for the best. For the time being, while you clear up your crap, you have my sympathy.

Oh, and Gareth's teacher might not thank you, but I bet he will :)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

The moment I realized all those garments were headed for the curb, I thought of you and T and your impressive ability to get rid of things. showingup would have freed herself from those things long ago, I told myself, and that did actually help.

[tracyandrook.livejournal.com]

ugh. gad. I think everybody has to do this at least once. But generally when I see little bits of crushed white flower petals and go, "What's that?" and realize it is yet again TOILET PAPER, it is outdoors.
You may already have scheduled some time out of town in a clean place to clear your minds and sinuses. If not, I recommend it.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

After Dan had done all the mopping, I spent the last discretionary bit of our tax refund on a really large, vigorous HEPA filter, and that did the trick for the remaining fumes. Amazing how fast it worked, too. We'd thought we might have to flee the house for a couple of days, but after a couple of hours running on high, we could close the windows and keep breathing.

[shakti-lemaris.livejournal.com]

If it's the right teacher, a Monty Python quoting preschooler would make that person's day. The idea of it certainly made mine!

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

She's an early-thirty-something Russian immigrant, so she knows more about Vygotskian educational theory than I do, but I don't know whether Pythonesque humor translates for a Russian cultural background. Ah, well. Poop, at least, is universal.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Oh honey, I'm sorry.

My favorite cousin's eldest daughter

[amushink.livejournal.com]

taught his son to greet his preschool playmates with: "Bow to me, or I will eat your soul." As he said, "THAT was a fun parent-teacher conference."

Re: My favorite cousin's eldest daughter

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Your cousin either has an impressive ability to follow through on his plans, or has impressively low impusle control. I can see how he'd be a favorite. What did his son conclude about all this?

[violet-moon25.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you need a visit from Robin Hood the Clean? We only have 1 bathroom so we put the wipes in the Diaper Champ. I hope the clean up is done by now since I haven't checked Live Journal in weeks.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey Sarah!

I'm LaToya from Pampers. When I came across your blog I didn't know I had this in store! Wow! I'm so sorry that happened. While I don't work in the Kandoo department, I have a number and (email address) you can call to share your experience. I'm sure they'll be happy to help. 800-726-7377
kandoo@nehemiahmfg.com I hope everything's going well.