my dear toilet (standard:other, 950 words)
Author: vihksin	Added: Jan 28 2003	Views/Reads: 3108/1	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
a girl's best friend is.. a toilet.

I ease back into my seat, making a slight farting noise and at
twenty-five years old, I still blush defensively.  Van Gogh's Starry 
Night hangs on the wall to my right, alongside a proudly framed 
master's degree.  Dr. Owen asks which one person I think knows me best. 


The toilet does, I tell him.  I mean, I guess a toilet isn't a real
person but it does have a mouth and it is forced to take shit all 
throughout its sad existence just like a real one...  Dr. Owen keeps 
silent and after a long awkward pause I shrug to myself and continue. 

My classic design, pearl white toilet with universal 16-1/8 inch rim
height, large water surface, powerful, quiet flushing by G-Max 
Technology©, and tiny seashells etched around its base, really knows my 
life story.  Yes, I must've been two when I flushed down my old 
pacifier, just out of curiosity.  What came of that was I got some 
harsh toilet training for the next few months, my mom thinking I was 
showing her my 'readiness.' 

Dr. Owen lets out a bored "humm" and I half expect him to drone on about
Freud and ask if people consider me anal-retentive.  Thankfully he 
doesn't. 

Well, I go on, Needless to say I soon became a regular acquaintance of
my toilet.  Our first emotional ordeal together came when I was in 
kindergarten.  The goldfish I'd won from the school carnival had died 
from starvation.  Two weeks later (during which "Goldie" was frozen in 
a zip-lock bag and me, frozen in denial), I was finally prepared to 
face his funeral.  As Mom flushed Goldie down, my toilet gave many 
respectful moments of silence and even let me cry on its tank of a 
shoulder. 

Over the next couple of years many things took the windy, circular path
down that toilet: my cousin's toys, stolen candy I realized I couldn't 
finish before getting caught, bad drawings of the rainbow (the colors 
were all out of order, my dad had criticized), raw cauliflower stuffed 
into a napkin from dinnertime, Flintstone's vitamins, and countless 
bugs I got tired of watching trying to doggie-paddle out.  Then when my 
parents separated I took it upon myself to do away with her wedding 
ring.  The echo-ey clinks it made against the toilet bowl were 
celebratory.  Mom and I, we both knew she knew what had happened to it; 
I think she was grateful. 

I was ten or eleven when I first tried out a tampon. 

I snicker with myself, wondering what Dr. Owen's thinking. 

I had no idea what they were for, but I knew enough from Mom to end up
tossing one down my pants, walking around with it for awhile, then 
flushing it and getting another one.  A good deal of time passed before 
she found out what I was doing, but for that while I was a grown-up and 
the toilet was a witness. 

Jr. High, a couple report cards had to go down, but with an especially
drawn-out hiss, my toilet totally agreed that those certain teachers 
actually were horribly unfair. 

By my high school years I had trust in my toilet (though it did give me
a case of potty-mouth one year), so I confided in it one night, asking 
for advice about my boyfriend.  The next morning, it gave me truly the 
clearest advice I've ever gotten since then: that dear toilet allowed a 
good-sized rat to crawl out from it.  I remember standing there as the 
rat shook his wetness off, Mom screeching like a wild monkey behind me, 
and thinking Yeah, he is a rat, isn't he?  I'll break up with him 
tomorrow. 

I stop and attempt to crane my neck back to check what Dr. Owen is
doing.  His jaded gray eyes stare back at me, eyebrows raise, and the 
personalized pen he's holding swings back and forth sternly, motioning 
for me to turn around.  I'm getting annoyed and honestly, bored of 
this.  I take in a deep breath and sigh; I recite the rest to him. 

So, when I was nineteen Mom died in a car accident, I kept the house and
married some old guy--that would be Ed--to help pay the bills.  Then I 
wanted a baby so I flushed all our condoms and pills down the toilet.  
Next were the various pregnancy tests I had to keep secret.  An 
accident and nine months later, I'm nagging him to quit smoking, and 
down goes ten packs of cigarettes.  That took countless flushes; my 
toilet's quiet flush feature was even wearing away.  And he hasn't even 
quit.  Anyway, I suppose all my life I've been hiding the truth from 
myself, crippling myself to never be able to face anything, rejecting 
all I slightly dislike away and down the toilet with a comforting 
flush.  I mean, is the toilet really my best friend, my only friend?  
Do you think I need to stop this before I let my entire life go down 
the toilet?  Help? 

I twist my neck back again and see Dr. Owen checking his tacky gold
watch.  "Well, your hour's up--I'll be vacationing for the next two 
weeks, here's my business card, and you can make a second appointment 
with my secretary anytime."  He smiles and nods sympathetically as he 
says this, like he's doing me a favor. 

I stop by Wal-Mart on my way home.  I pick up four bowl-freshener discs
(mountain spring scented), a Warmlet brand seat heater for $150, a pink 
furry seat cover accessory, and oh, a brand new plunger too.  I know 
it'll be hard on my dear toilet to take in two bodies, even if one of 
them is child-sized. 


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