S*&t My Daughter says

Yesterday my daughter Ashley and her husband Zack dropped by the house on their way back to Spokane. Shortly before heading out on the road again, Ashley took a potty break. Her father and I and Zack were sitting in the adjoining living room when all of sudden we heard Ashley yell, “S*&T!”

Ashley doesn’t cuss.

At least not in front of her mama and daddy she doesn’t.

Tim looked at me.

I looked at Zack.

Zack stood up.

“You okay?” he called through the bathroom door. When someone is in the bathroom yelling the S-word, it’s very discombobulating. The people on the other side aren’t sure what to make of it.

“I dropped my phone in the toilet,” Ashley hollered back.

We could hear water running and Ashley pitching a hissy fit on the other side of the door.

“I hope you dropped it before you went,” Zack said.

“I dropped it after I went!” she yelled back. The phone had fallen out of her sweatshirt pocket and plopped down in a bowlful of pee. Ashley had to scoop it out, thus the yelling.

“Get the battery out quick,” we all yelled at her.

“Do you have some rice?” Zack asked.

“Sure,” I said, heading for the cupboard.

“This is an experiment, we’ll see if it works,” Zack said, pouring the rice in a bowl, then into a Ziploc bag. Supposedly the rice will pull the moisture from the phone,  a good thing given that there’s no way to clean a pee-stained cellphone.

Ashley was out of the bathroom but still hollering: “I can’t believe I did that! I can’t believe it. I can’t use that phone now.”

Tim, ever the diplomat, comes around to her side, puts his arm around her and said, “I thought you were making a proclamation of some sort.”

“What?” she said.

“I thought you were announcing what you were doing in the bathroom,” he said through a fit of giggles. “I didn’t know why you felt the need to scream out S&*T! I didn’t know what you wanted us to do about it.”

You can’t blame a parent. We are the ones who potty-trained all you adults after all. There were many times when we gathered around toilets and clapped exuberantly over your ability to do your duty. Perhaps Tim just thought Ashley was calling out for a bit of praise? I must admit there was a tiny little moment when I thought “My, she is so proud of herself!”

By now we were all doubled-over, laughing to the point of peeing ourselves.

Yes. It truly is a disconcerting moment when someone in the bathroom hollas out.

Should you holla back? Or wait to see if it’s just a passing thang?

Oh. And that rice solution?

Just an old wives tale.