I apologize in advance

This paragraph involves some tummy trouble - no details, certainly, but a couple of anecdotes that have amused me. Just a warning! There were some troubling stomach issues happening in my house today. In the midst of the gastric distress the internal flush mechanism on Bella's commode broke off, something I determined to be a matter of replacement and not repair. Since we have to let maintenance handle that and they are not around on Sundays, when flushing has been needed - and it's been needed a lot around here today, I'm sorry to say - I just lift the lid off the toilet tank and pull up the little valve thingy (like my technical plumbing terms?) myself. This distresses Bella greatly, and every time I have done it she shrieks and runs away and then won't come near me for the better part of a half hour or so. If I actually touch her, for some reason, she is completely grossed out - "Mom, you just put toilet water in my hair, that is sooooo nasty". I have explained that the water in the tank is actually clean water, and that I am washing my hands thoroughly after each manual flush, but she just can't see past the fact that I am putting my hands in the toilet.

I wanted to remind her of a time, when she was about four years old, that she came out of the bathroom looking very smug, walked over to me and said, "Mom, I couldn't reach the sink to wash my hands, but it's OK because I washed them in the toilet. And then I flushed it, because it saves water that way". Horrors!

I will segue from there to one more story: a few years ago Brian bought me a nice watch for Mother's Day. A few days later I was in the bathroom, cleaning, and took it off and put it up on a shelf with the towels so it didn't get wet. I cleaned the tub, scrubbed the commode and flushed it, then turned to start cleaning the sink, but when I turned I bumped the shelves with my elbow and jostled the watch, knocking it off the shelf. I tried to grab it while it was falling (towards the toilet bowl), doing this awkward, catching-dropping-bumping thing that felt like it was going in slow motion - I could actually hear myself saying, "NOOOOOOOO....." - and the watch dropped right into the last little bit of water and swirled away, never to be seen again. I had literally flushed my gift down the toilet.

I 'fessed up to Brian when he got home from work, hating it the whole time, knowing full well he would never let me live it down. And he hasn't - to this day, when I say I want something, he teases me about it, in a good-natured way, of course - "If I get you those earrings, do you promise not to flush them down the toilet?". I am exceptional at doing silly little clumsy, awkward things like that, but that is all part of my magical appeal. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.