A few weeks ago I noticed a quarter-sized chip in the toilet tank lid of our upstairs bathroom. Further inspection revealed a couple of dings in the toilet bowl lid. This toilet was installed within the last year and until this time was in brand new condition, so of course I was dismayed and determined to get to the bottom of what had happened. First I checked with my older two children and was met with earnest denials. So it was on to my husband--he, too, was mystified. We mused that perhaps the tank lid was damaged or cracked during installation but that somehow that piece had held on until now. But that seemed awfully far-fetched--we're talking porcelain here.
Having almost resigned ourselves to not solving this mystery, it suddenly came to me. There is one more person who lives in this house. But come on, he's only four years old! Then I remembered him coming to me not too long before to say, "Mommy, the toilet hurt my finger." Hmmmm. Time for an interrogation. "Honey, let's go look at the toilet. Did you try to lift this lid off? You did? It's pretty heavy, isn't it? Did you drop it on your finger? That hurt, didn't it? Honey, this lid is too heavy for you to lift. Don't do that anymore, okay?"
Then in an effort to dissaude further investigation we invited him to take a long look at the inner workings of the toilet. Poor kid. He has grown up in a house of sub-par toilets and has many times seen his elders plunge them and lift the tank lid to poke and prod in an effort to get the darned things to work right. He probably thinks this is standard toilet operation. Or maybe he's got a future as a plumber. The good news is that we just this month replaced the last of our three toilets! We're a 21st-century household now, at least where toilets are concerned!
(You know you've reached middle age when you can get this excited about plumbing.)
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