If at first you don't succeed. . .

This story really starts on Sunday.  I was upstairs reading and I heard Marty making all sorts of racket downstairs.  At first it sounded like he was in the bathroom, but then the noise went on for a long time (20 min or so).  I thought maybe he was down in the basement being mad and throwing things around, but then I heard what I KNEW to be the stool from the bathroom.  After I finished my book a few minutes later I went down to put dinner away and find out what all the hullabaloo was about.  I could see the floor in the hallway was damp, and it looked to have emminated from the bathroom.  Marty's expression told me I should ask questions later like tomorrow or never.

Monday he told me  that the toilet had, in fact,  overflowed and made a HUGE mess.  All that noise was him cleaning up.

Now, to today.  I was flushing old leftovers down the toilet.  This usually works better than having them plug up the garbage disposal.   True to form, I plugged the toilet and got water all over the floor.   So I took 20 min and plunged and mopped until the floor was damp and toilet operational.  Meanwhile BC is asking to go potty and BL is screaming bloody murder in the next room.  I picked up BC and lifted him over the mess and put him on the potty.  Good, all clean.  

Now I need to flush the rest of the stuff.  I broke it into small pieces and put it in the toilet.  Not small enough apparently.  Flood again.  I ran upstairs and grabbed some towels so the mess would not seep into the hallway and jumped back in my pond.  I plunged and plunged and plunged and finally I cleared the clog.  I didn't want to spend 15 minutes or more mopping again so I went out to the garage and grabbed the SHOP VAC.  Hooray for power tools!  5 min and a semi-full vacuum later I took it outside.

Knowing Marty wouldn't want me to leave it full of water I began to drain it all over the driveway.  There was a lot of water in there. A lot.  I came in a really broke up the last bunch of food and Viola! it flushes first try, no problems.  YEAH!

Just as get BL settled down for a nap (he has been crying the WHOLE TIME), Marty comes in and asks why there is a whole bunch of dirty water in the driveway and the floor in the bathroom is all wet.  

At least now I know the best way to clean up such a disaster!  

If at first you don't succeed. . . Try to find a way to make it worse.