Toilet Ladler

Cool, damp (low 30s)

Goodness. You know, sometimes I feel incredibly lucky to work at camp. It’s a place beloved to so many people, and I know a ton of them would bite (literally, probably) at the chance to live at camp and do things to benefit camp all the time. And of course I love my job, and most of the time, it’s amazing and wonderful and even fulfilling.

Today, however, I spent a lot of time in one dark, damp bathroom, trying to drain toilets. Why did I spend so long in there? Well…

First thing this morning, I set about draining toilets. It was going just fine, with that new pumpy thing, until I hit this particular bathroom. Then the pumpy thing stopped. This device usually works like this: As the drill rotates, it rotates a little thing inside this pump. The pump is attached to an intake hose and an outtake (ha ha) hose, and when the thing rotates, water comes in through the intake (from the toilet) and goes out the other one (into a bucket). Needless to say, none of this was happening. I monkeyed with it for awhile, and didn’t get anywhere. I monkeyed some more. I took it apart. I dangled the hoses above my head. I changed the drill’s battery. In short, I tried really hard to fix it. Nothing doing. So I drove to the hardware store, consulted with Carlo on options, and ended up buying a new one of the same thing. I also bought a little siphon hose with a pump, just hoping.

When I brought it back, it worked a charm—EUREKA!—for the first toilet bowl, and then didn’t work again. I got out the siphon, had a good laugh about the complete ineffectiveness of that method, and then sighed. Only one method remained, and it looked like this:


For the next long while, I ladled water out of toilets. I crouched on the floor, getting better acquainted with nasty, damp, dark toilet bowls than anyone could ever want to be. There’s a surprising amount of ladle-fulls of water in a toilet, especially when you get down to the bottom and have to use miniature ladles. After you’ve ladled, you have to get the rest of the water with a sponge, which means dipping your hand into the freezing cold water of the toilet, and squeezing this freezing cold water out, until your hand screams in protest. Mind, this whole time you’re squeezing toilet water, which doesn’t make you feel any better.

All in all, I think I managed three toilets today. Out of… 42. Great! Yee-haw! Awesome. At this rate I’ll only be at this thirteen more days.