Coming Clean

Adventures in Potty Training

As surprising as it may be, this story is NOT about potty training my son. This story is a story about me. A story about me to make up for my lack of a nose stuffing story.

This particular story happens when I’m somewhere between the age of two and three. I can’t remember if my brother was born yet, which means it’s more likely that I was two.

I remember it very clearly, that day of near death. It was the culmination of many hard weeks of training and preparation, and that particular day, I had decided, was to be the day things changed. I felt the urge come: it was time to either fill the drawers or make haste for the potty to prove my boyish worth. Being the big boy I was (and never ceased to be), I rushed to the bathroom. No, I did not slam the door but closed it like any big person would do. And then… I locked the door. This was going to be a one-boy show, for sure.

I dropped my pants and climbed onto the pot to do my business. Everything was going good: no constipation or heavy pushing; tee-tee staying inside the bowl; and, luckily, plenty of paper on the roll. (These are universal concerns, of course … my son paying careful attention to these details in his own training even now)

It was the haste to go for the roll of paper that did it, though. As I shifted my weight to get off the pot for the paper needed in clean-up ops, I felt vital friction rapidly disappearing. Before I could do anything to rectify the situation, I had doubled over and fallen into the toilet, knees and shoulders together in an unnatural and uncomfortable meeting.

This turn of events was unexpected and unplanned but, worse yet, found me unprepared. I tried to push myself up, but I was too far inside the toilet to be able to get a grip for lifting my weight. Twisting and turning wasn’t working either. Despair was starting to overcome me.

But then there was another change. A cool, slimey, unpleasant change. A change that I knew meant nothing other than the witch that lived inside the toilet emerging for her dinner. Momma had told me about her – the witch was why I was nervous being near the toilet when it flushed. But this time, the witch knew something was awry. She had come to investigate the scene, and I was going to be her surprise dinner.

Despair had me in its grips, and fear had me in its thrall. My legs, with knees just inside the toilet seat, began kicking wildly, and I began to cry and scream in fear! The toilet began trying to suck me down with its toilet-ish *thwhomp!! thwhomp!!* sounds!! …and in the distance, somewhere but not close enough, I could hear my parents yelling for me.

…and then firm hands had me and placed me on my feet…

I opened my eyes to find my dad having set me down, and my mother looking on in fright. They asked me if I was alright, and I said I had heard the witch trying to suck me down the toilet. Dad said that was him nearly beating the door off its hinges to get inside the room (which makes sense being as that particular door was of thin ply-wood construction), but it would be a while before I would believe him and not feel nervous being around a toilet alone.

Since that time, I have learn to overcome my fear of being on the toilet. Indeed, I find that it is one of my few and fleeting fortress of solitudes … the smellier one, at that. But for a time, I can remember being happy going in my pants if a parent was not in the bathroom with me.