~~ Our daughter gave me permission to tell this story. Thanks, “Sis,” for being able to laugh about it now. ~~

I had some wacky, unreasonable fears as a child.

One of those was my fear of the toilet clogging. I guess I was convinced that a clogged toilet would overflow and flood the house and we would all drown. Unreasonable fear.

So I would finish my business, wash my hands, open the door, then flush the toilet and run for my life. I did this everytime I used the toilet and, of course, outgrew it at some point.

Our second daughter had the same fear.

‘Saja feared a flushing toilet…not the sound, but the possibility of it clogging and her being trapped there, next to it.

When she was six, her aunt took us to Disneyland and she was in one of the bathroom stalls FOREVER. Then I heard her crying, and I became concerned.

“What’s wrong, Honey? Are you sick?” I asked.

Through choked sobs she answered, “I…can’t…get…off…the…toilet.”

“What? Why?” I’m thinking someone put superglue on the seat or something.

“The toilet’s going to flush by itself.” It was one of those sensor/self-flushing toilets. In her mind, she was trapped because if she got off the toilet seat, it would flush and she would die before I could rescue her from the flood.

I giggled at the horrible irony of this. She couldn’t get off the toilet to open the stall so I could set up her escape, and she didn’t want to be in there when it flushed. My memory of the dilemma ends there. I know we got her out alive.

That same year, she was in the bathtub and one of her younger brothers needed to use the toilet, so she closed the curtain for the sake of both their privacy. From the living room we heard an alarming scream and panicked cries for help. Richard and I sprinted down the hall to see the bathroom door open, her brother hopping around in a panic, his eyes wide with fear, and pointing into the bathroom; we expected to see a bloody headwound from a slip in the tub or something.

‘Saja’s worst fear had happened. She was trapped in the bathtub while the toilet, which stood between the her and the door, overflowed. Her brother had used too much toilet paper and clogged it. The expression of sheer terror on her face gripped my heart. “Oh, dear Lord,” I prayed. “Of all the people in the house this could have happened to, it had to be her.”

After things had settled down I had the chance to revisit it with her. “Hey, you know what? Your biggest fear happened today. And you survived it.”

She is fourteen now. I just noticed today that she has outgrown that fear…to the extent that when the toilet clogs (thank you, little brothers), she’s the first one to get the plunger.

When did that happen?

That’s my girl.

© Alexa Lopez, 2009