“Never again,” he whispered to the empty bathroom. “From now on, it’s reconnaissance missions only.”
It started, as these things often do, with overconfidence. He’d used a frankly irresponsible amount of toilet paper—a fluffy, quilted fortress of three-ply security. He’d felt like a king on his throne. But when he pulled the lever with a casual flick of his wrist, the water didn’t swirl and disappear. It rose. Slowly. Deliberately. Like a milky, gray-brown tide of judgment. toilet paper clogging toilet
But the plunger was in the garage. Because of course it was. “Never again,” he whispered to the empty bathroom
Glug. The sound was wet, final, and full of malice. He’d felt like a king on his throne
A geyser of befouled water, mixed with the original offending wad of toilet paper, surged up and over the bowl. It splattered onto the tile, kissed his bare shins, and dripped onto the bathmat. The toilet paper—that specific, shredded, pulpy culprit—lay in the middle of the puddle like a soggy white flag of surrender.
At 1:15 AM, after a YouTube tutorial titled “The Toilet Plunge: A Guide for the Defeated” and a scalding shower, Arthur sat on the edge of the tub. The toilet was now silent, flushed clean after a half-hour war. He had won the battle, but the bathmat was in a trash bag, and his soul was tarnished.
And somewhere in the plumbing, a ghost of a glug echoed back in laughter.