The Plunger

I approached the cashier sheepishly, holding a heavy-duty toilet plunger. I had checked my sister’s three bathrooms at her vacation home only to come up with some “cutesy” décor plunger. It was stylish but useless.  The base of it was the size of a large Slurpee lid, and it was all of 1 inch deep. No match for the load I was trying to cajole down the bowl.

After ten minutes of plunging, I was one sweaty mess, so I headed to town on a serious mission.  Kind of hard to expect future invites unless you clean up after yourself.  You can wash the sheets, vacuum the area rugs, and polish the stainless steel, but leave a rank, clogged toilet, and you deserve more than a whiff of disapproval. 

“Oh …you look like you have a fun day ahead of you,” the seventy-some-year-old clerk said.  Our eyes locked in a fellowship of defeat. “Did you ever think life would get this good?” I quipped.   She found herself smirking as she fumbled with the two sets of reading glasses atop her head. She continued to struggle as she searched for the bar code.  Desperate to remember her training for the computerized register, she took a deep breath.  I, in turn, held my breath as she ran my debit card through. The plunger was $19.95 and boasted a ten-year warranty… ”No load too big or small.”  Already resigned to her fate of working well into her seventies, the cashier sympathetically whispered that my card was denied.  Oh, shit, I thought… the exchange, the damn US exchange.  Must have been a dollar short. Crap… it even costs more in the States to take a dump. “Could you please set this aside?” I pleaded.” I will be right back.” 

Couldn’t get back to my car fast enough. Transferred the balance from my savings account (a whopping $1.80) to my checking and phoned my girlfriend to etransfer a small cushion so I would not be denied again. 

Five minutes later, I was in line. The woman had indeed saved my plunger and seemed impressed that I had performed such sorcery.  “Oh good…” she said, “It went through this time.” 

“Yup, a banner day.  This must be the abundance my fortune cookie predicted,” I said as our eyes locked in an empathetic purgatory.

Somehow, I intimately knew this woman.  I envisioned her limping home on swollen feet and falling onto her bed exhausted. She would forgo her nightly tea and toast, set her alarm, and watch her favorite soap.

I on the other hand would be elbow deep in my own shit.

I’ve always believed the universe communicates through symbols. And this little plunger episode revealed exactly how I do my life. My throwing caution to the wind, use of toilet paper was habitual and typical of my love of excess. Nor was it foreign to ignore that niggle that warned me I might have pushed my luck. Holding my breath and crossing my fingers should not be the default strategy of a 64-year-old woman. 
 

Upon reflection, my “give it time; things have to improve“ philosophy has never come to fruition. And it didn’t work on the toilet either.  The water level may eventually go down, but failing to remove the source of the problem means one flush and you are back on your knees mopping up waste. 
    

And I am not simply talking human excrement; I am talking about being on your knees in a come-to-Jesus moment, staring at your wasted potential.  All the wasted opportunities, the countless shitty traumas I’ve endured that invited me to finally be kind and compassionate to myself.  Oh… the years I have lived with the stench of feeling less than or not deserving. The waste of not renting a snake or calling Roto-Rooter decades ago, and of not healing the root of the problem, came into focus.

I went to bed humbled by the experience, but I was intrigued by my friend’s comment after listening to me berate myself. 

 

“I don’t understand why you are so down on yourself.  You had a problem…were inconvenienced…got creative and solved it. And your sister is now the proud owner of a functional plunger. Everybody has shit, you know… and that emergency purchase you made today will help her deal with her own shit someday.”

Hmmmmmm.  I did research consumers’ best plungers online… I did face up to the shitty reality of my situation. I must have done something right to have a friend who would transfer me money without question.  And that empathetic exchange between the sales clerk and I was precious. It is so comforting for people to be present enough to really see each other.  She was seen and validated, and showered with compassion.  I did that. We had seen each other in our own insecurity and vulnerability and dogged commitment to keep on keeping on. Yup, we acknowledged our reality. We lived in a world where a seventy-five-year-old woman, befuddled by fading eyesight and varicose veins, is forced to work eight hours a day to keep the lights on.  And a world where a retired teacher of thirty-six years could be shaken by the purchase of a plunger. Yet I have come to believe that sometimes being seen with compassion and a smile is all a person needs to forgo the snooze alarm and show up for another shitty day!