MexiCanadian

I really struggled with how many details I should include in this post, especially since fifty percent of my readership is my mom. I decided that since she spent the first few years of my life changing my diapers that no poo story I could possibly tell would make her love me less. Hopefully the rest of you are as forgiving.(Kendra, if you’re reading this, I wish you could have been here).

Warning: While there are no pictures of actual poo in this post, there are some graphic details. If you’ve just eaten or are about to eat, maybe read this later.

Ok, it starts like this: Canadian immune systems are kind of like 5-year-old laptops. They’re not very good at doing several things at once, they get overwhelmed easily, and sometimes for no reason at all, they shut down (ERROR MESSAGE 39284728947: would you like to continue?). Despite my best efforts to get vaccinated, avoid street meat, and drink bottled water, my pipes have been a little quite really loose since I got here. In case you didn’t get the euphemism, what I’m trying to say is: I’ve had constant diarrhea with no end in sight, and have come close to ruining jeans I’m rather fond of. More than once this week I have very seriously considered purchasing Depends, but decided it would be too damaging to my self esteem. Maybe after I finish this story it won’t matter anymore.

The Mexican sewer system is a little underdeveloped, so you’re not supposed to flush toilet paper, only pure waste. Any paper products need to be put in the garbage can next to the toilet. Although I had been remembering to put my toilet paper in the garbage, I neglected to do the same with my tampons, and our apartment toilet got blocked up yesterday morning. We did not have a plunger. It was the caretaker’s day off. Not the greatest combination.

After returning from my classes, I realized that I needed to use the bathroom. Badly. Holding it was not an option. In in a swift, single motion, I dropped my pants, dove toward the toilet, and landed gracefully on the seat. For the next ten minutes I prayed to Gods from every religion that my discomfort would end. When the coast finally seemed clear, I proceeded to flush the toilet. The blocked toilet. I watched the water rise and rise, but by the grace of Jesus, Allah, Buddah, and three of the Spice Girls, it stopped before overflowing. I considered running out and buying a plunger, but my roomate was out for a run, and I didn’t want to go out and try to find one/buy one alone.

I did the only thing I could think of to do: I covered my forearm in Wal-mart bags and decided to try to unblock the commode manually. Around the time I was elbow-deep, I felt like I had finally found the offending blockage. I tried to close my hand around it and pull it out. And then the bags ripped. My entire forearm was covered in well, shit. I abandoned ship and soaked my arm in bleach and disinfectant until my skin hurt to touch. 

When I returned to the bathroom, for some reason the water level had fallen dramatically. I figured I must have cleared the blockage, so I tried to flush again. I held the handle down, and somewhere in the top of the tank, I heard something snap. The water started rising again. I opened the tank to find that some inner part of the handle had broken off.

Did I mention it was the caretaker’s day off?

Tiff came home from her run and I related the news to her very carefully. Being that she is so awesome, she said, “Don’t worry. We’ll just pee in it.” This is the part where I had to fess up that the blockage was my fault, and that my current intestinal situation might not allow me to go a night without a bowel movement. She proceeded to share her own embarrassing poo story (which I won’t share here), and I have to say, I felt a lot better. All that poo talk had us pretty hungry, so we went out for burritos, accidentally walked in a guy in the washroom having his own poo problems, and then we came home.

This morning our bathroom smelled like a combination of burnt hair, underdigested Mexican food, and regret. I opened the bathroom window and let it air out a bit, but there was no disguising it. Day-old poo is day-old poo. After pleading with a guard at the gate, he promised to send the caretaker up to our room as soon as he arrived. He came around one in the afternoon and fixed the broken handle in minutes, but when it came to unclogging the toilet, he just shook his head and handed me the plunger.

“Es tuyo (It’s yours),” he said.

A minute of aggressing plunging later, the blockage cleared and the toilet had its first successful flush in 30 or more hours. I also finally started taking the antibiotics my doctor gave me, and now all is (relatively) quiet on the poo front. 

The final thing I’d like to leave all of you with is this: émbolo. It’s the Spanish word for “toilet plunger.” Who knows? You might need it one day.