Daily Newsie

Some people are afraid of heights, or snakes, or Connie Chung, but I, my friends, suffer from a fear much less accepted and understood than any of the above. My name is DailyNewsie, and I am a crapperphobic.

(Hi, DailyNewsie!)

I have been afraid of toilets for as long as I can remember. When they’re working the way they’re supposed to — flushing, filling up and staying quiet — I’m a happy girl, but as soon as something goes wrong (or if I come upon an automatic one) I freak out. I almost fainted in fear when, during my semester abroad in the former East Germany, I discovered in a Leipzig hostel an old-fashioned toilet complete with pull-chain. A friend tried to calm this phobia by loaning me a few books on the history of the toilet, but instead I had nightmares about high tide in Seattle, when people’s toilets would turn into geysers.

The toilet in my apartment has been an exemplary model of service, requiring only two visits from the maintenance people in the two years I’ve lived there: once to replace the flapper (it kicked on in the middle of the night, woke me up and scared me so badly that I couldn’t get back to sleep) and once to replace the hose that connects to the wall. I love my toilet, and would give it cookies if I thought it would appreciate them.

I don’t like the toilet at work. It backs up constantly, although it usually takes care of the problem itself with a terrifying whoosh after the water reaches the rim. I don’t care. I still hate it. I refuse to take the lid off the back – I made one of our doctors drop in the bleach tablet we use so I never have to clean it — and routinely pull the flush-and-run maneuver “just in case.” In short, this toilet is the bane of my existence, especially today, when the unthinkable happened: It backed up again, and the longer I waited for the terrifying whoosh to come, the more apparent it became that it wasn’t going to fix itself.

I weighed my options for a moment, then started calling everyone local I know to come help me. Unsuccessful at that, I called The Boyfriend (I was sort of hoping he’d make the two-hour trek back home), who carefully walked me through the process of plunging a toilet before realizing I was not, in fact, in front of the toilet, nor was I in the bathroom at all. I was cowering against a wall in the lobby, hoping a passing plumber would coincidentally stop in and fix everything. Finally, The Boyfriend convinced me to stand in the bathroom doorway, where I regarded the toilet with suspicion and loathing before giving it one quick plunge.

Somewhat encouraged by this, and completely unwilling to plunge it again, I hit the flusher and beat a hasty retreat to the farthest corner of the office. Success! The townspeople cheered, and vowed to use the bathroom at McDonald’s from now on! And, somewhere in Pennsylvania, my father suddenly brightened as he realized in an ESP sort of way that his daughter now had someone else to bother when her toilet backed up.

What a morning! I think I need a nap.