The Day That I Pushed My Brother Into the Toilet.

Let me, before I tell you the very interesting story, introduce to you the culprit.
As the title indicates, the culprit is my brother, Sam. Here are some pictures of him to give you an idea of what he's like.

Ok. If the idea you got was that he was an angel, and liked wearing hats. You were right in one area. He loves hats and is a ham for pictures. In the last picture of him, he was an angel. But he was asleep. Alright. I admit that Sam is really great most of the time...but when he isn't...well, that's when I push him into toilets.

So today is mostly stay at home day. The boys are in a slightly bad mood as they usually are when my Dad's gone for a little while. And then I hear it.

My sister and I are eating our lunch. Catey looks at me and says: "it's your turn to check on Sam next."

Reminders like this are pretty easily satisfied. You just yell out, asking if the boys are staying out of trouble and they usually yell back something to the effect of: "We're not making a mess!"

And Since Catey just said next and not now, I kept on finishing my lunch. That's when I heard it. The sound isn't something you can put into words. I don't mean it's indescribable. I mean that it's not really any real words. just a string of gibberish from a two-and-a-half-year-old. But when you hear that sound-you know what it means. That wordless call can be roughly translated to: "I NEED A WIPING!"

Great.

So I get up like any dutiful sister who wants the screaming to stop, and walk toward the bathroom.

The screaming stops when I walk through the door. Sam is sitting on the toilet, waving a wad of toilet paper at me. I take it, starting the usual polite bathroom conversation. "You didn't try to wipe yourself, did you?"

Sam says no, so I believe him and wipe him. Then, (terrifying 'bad news' music) I flush the toilet.

Sam yells at me. "I want to flush it!!!!!!!!"

It's too late. That's what I told him. But it was really too late to stop the terrible doom.

Sam (Who doesn't like listening to anything once it involves him not getting his way) gives me his evil eye, reaches behind him, and flushes the toilet again-before it's done flushing from the first time...and he's holding the handle down.

Before I tell you what I did next, let me just explain something to you. My dad is the main fix-it person in our house. But he teaches all of us a lot of stuff. But somehow, I'm the only person who actually remembers any of it. So I really don't like it when Sam is messing up the toilet...especially when Dad isn't back till tomorrow.

I was washing my hands at the moment I saw Sam do it. Angry, pulling my hands out of the water, I yell at Sam to stop it.

He doesn't, of course. He just gives me a look very similar to the look he's giving the camera in the first picture.

Not thinking about the fact that my hands are still wet and that Sam's backside isn't really as large as it should be for the toilet, I shove his hand off the flusher handle thingy.

Sam lost his balance, like majorly. He slipped so that the only thing keeping him from falling into the toilet water below, was his arms and legs, both looped around the seat.

I pulled him up instantly, feeling kind of bad. but I'm not going to let him off so easily. Shoving him into the toilet wasn't enough punishment. So I talk to him. "Do you know why I..." oh boy. "why I pushed you into the toilet?"

Sam's reply clearly indicated his shock. "You pushed me into the toilet. That hurt."

"Yes, but do you know why?"

"You pushed me into the toilet."

I asked the question about ten million times more, telling Sam the answer each time. the response was always the same.

"You pushed me into the toilet. That hurt."

Finally I got the point across to Sam that he shouldn't hold the handle down because it could break the toilet.

I don't know if he really gets it. He's done so many thing to that toilet. Once he put about half a roll of toilet paper in the bowl while Mom and Dad were gone.

But that's another story.

Jocelyn