A Plunger is No Match for Paper Towels...

So last night Haylee spilled some juice on the carpet.  Eric and I were playing a video game and paused it long enough for me to soak up the spill with some paper towels.  Since there was only a couple minutes left in the video game we were playing, I (stupidly) decided to lay my paper towels down on the floor next to me while we finished up.  After we were done, I was planning on throwing the towels away and then it was bedtime for us all.

As we were turning off the game system, Haylee came running out to me exclaiming, quite proudly, that she had gone "ducky" (her way of saying "poopy"...haha).  She drug me to the bathroom to show me her accomplishment and, sure enough...there was 'ducky' in the potty...along with the pile of paper towels I had used a few minutes earlier to soak up spilled juice. 

Before I realized what was happening, Haylee reached up and flushed the toilet.  You can imagine what happened next.  The toilet bowl filled up and came so close to overflowing I felt myself holding my breath and backed Haylee and myself toward the door.  Luckily all the goodies stayed put in the toilet where they belonged, but now we had a commode out of commission.  (Thank goodness our master bathroom was still functioning properly!  I'm thinking that three people and no toilets would be pretty disastrous!)

I grabbed the plunger and got to work, but to no avail.  I never quite realized just how much I was lacking in upper body strength until last night...  Eric came in and gave it a shot, but apparently paper towels are a lot stronger than plungers and men...  By this time we were all beyond frustrated and felt like we needed to call this guy in for reinforcements:

But we decided to let it sit overnight instead, thinking maybe the paper towels would have broken down by then and we could plunge our way to victory in the morning.  But victory didn't come in the morning.  After plunging for what seemed like forever yet again...our toilet was still clogged.  It was time to get out the computer and get to googling...  Eric used to make fun of me and my google obsession.  Any time we had a question about something, I would always reply with, "I don't know, but let me google it."  He now knows that, while it may seem comical, I can generally find an answer (or 10) to our problems. 

So this morning, when I was looking for ideas to unclog a paper-toweled toilet, I saw one that seemed ridiculously simple enough to possibly work.  It required squirting a bunch of dish soap into your toilet and then following it up with a big pot of almost boiling hot water.  I added the soap and filled up the biggest pot we had with water and waited for it to boil.  Since I had a pretty difficult time carrying our pot the short distance from our sink to the stove (I woke up in some major pain this morning and lifting that pot probably wasn't the best thing for me to do...haha), I figured it would be best to wait till Eric got home and let him dump the water in the toilet.

When he got home, I told him about my plan and he figured (as did I) that it was worth a shot.  He poured the pot of water in the bowl and we just sat there and stared for a minute or two.  Nothing seemed to be happening.  I remembered reading that some people had to pour a couple pots in before it worked.  There were others who thought it was best to let the hot water sit in the toilet for a little bit before trying to plunge.  We decided to let the water sit and see what happened. 

So while our toilet was taking a bath, we did some coloring with Haylee and ate a quick lunch.  Then back to the bathroom it was.  Still didn't seem to be much of a change, so Eric got the plunger and got to work.  After a couple minutes we thought it wasn't going to work, but all of a sudden we heard the lovely sound of our toilet flushing!  Now, not only is our toilet unclogged - but our bathroom smells wonderfully soapy as well...  When it was all said and done, Eric looked at the toilet, then at me and said, "So Dawn dish soap, huh?  Seems pretty handy to have..."

Yes, Eric.  Yes, it is.  Along with wonderful husbands who are willing to carry pots of boiling water to the bathroom....and plunge like their lives depended on it...