A note about life's little challenges

Because life in a foreign country is not difficult enough, I like to set myself little tasks just to up the challenge. Last year, if you remember, I decided to balance half a dozen eggs on top of a fridge and then spent about an hour cleaning fridge-motor scrambled egg off the floor, the wall and the appliance itself. This year I decided to up the ante and block my own toilet. 

Now wait, this is not as gross as it sounds. You see, I have one of those toilets where you can wash your hands as the water goes into the tank. It is environmentally genius. So, in order to protect the planet and feel less guilty about the plastic waste in this country, I keep a bar of soap on the shelf above the bog and was my hands on flush. But, on Friday last week, as I reached for the soap, I managed to knock the lid off a jar of cream and into the toilet. The flush is a powerful mechanism on a Toto toilet and the lid was quickly disappearing down the u-bend as I looked on in horror. 

Oh well, I thought, if it sucked it away so quickly, it must be fine. But two days later I realised it wasn’t fine at all. My toilet started to bubble and gurgle, and three witches entered and started incanting ‘double double toil and trouble.’ Obviously, the lid was coming back to haunt me. 

I called the company that manages my apartment, surely, they could send someone out to help. I mean it might be the lid or it might be just a coincidence. It’s their building, their problem, right? Wrong. It’ll cost you upwards of 10000 yen they told me, about 80 euros and that was the minimum. Or, the lady said, you could buy a plunger. 

Now people who know me, know I am a little cautious, with the purse-strings. so, off I popped to Daiso, the 100-yen store to buy a plunger and a pair of rubber gloves and some bleach and got ready to plumb the depths. I am no DIY expert and unblocking a simple toilet felt like an Everest to me. But, I had to do it, so I held my nose, donned the gloves and took the plunge. 

I won’t go into details, but suffice to say, my plunging worked, the witches disappeared, the water level dropped and the lid of the jar came back. All now flushes away with ease. And when I pull that flush and watch the water drain away, I feel immense pride. I did that. 

If you enjoy this, please buy my book. It's cheaper on Amazon but if you can buy it from the publisher direct it is better for them and might get me a second one published.