The Smell of Trouble

     It’s Friday night when, sniffing, I stepped into my little-used half-bathroom to look for a Kleenex. I wrinkled my nose. The small room reeked of urine. The lid on the toilet was open. Yep. Yellow water.

     I sighed. “Boys.”

     I have two of my own: the husband and the 8 ½ year old. I also have a few spares: some daycare kids and the occasional wandering farmer and/or government employee.

     I like having boys around. I really, truly do. But sometimes, they’re messy.

     I flushed the toilet, and went to get the Lysol and a wad of paper towels. I cleaned the toilet the way my mother, the germ-a-phobic nurse, had taught me when I was a young girl. I sprayed everything down, then started to wipe from the top, working my way down. It gets dirtier as you descend, you see – especially with boys of a certain age in the house. I cleaned the seat, top and bottom, and the spot where the hinges attach it to the base. Then I squatted down and cleaned the bowl and base all the way to the floor – careful to get the knob covers over the bolts, the tubes and valve, and the floor just surrounding the toilet. Once the outside was cleaned, I used the brush and scrubbed the inside, making sure to scrub the underside of the rim and jammed the bristles as far down the hole as it would go without getting stuck. I flushed again.

     There. Clean.

     So why was there still the overwhelming stench of urine?

     I shrugged, put the cleaning supplies away, and returned to the bathroom to wash my hands. It’s a very small bathroom—with not much more than a square of counter to hold the sink really—but we keep the little heart-shaped wooden toilet paper holder balanced on the corner, within easy reach of the seat. I turned on the tap, and almost knocked the TP holder into the open toilet.

     Oops!

     I caught the holder and started to set it on the top of the toilet.

     It had been covering a pool of fluid. Yellow liquid dripped from the heart-shaped base.

     Stinky, foul, smelly yellow fluid.

     You guessed it.

     Pee.

     Just when I thought I could no longer be surprised by the minutiae of my job, I find a hidden puddle of piss on my bathroom countertop.

     Husband, wandering farmers and/or government employees, you are excused from scrutiny. This is clearly the work of someone far more devious than the likes of you.

     Furthermore, I must now add to my list of suspects. And I know just the culprits that are capable of such devious deeds: the stepstool-carrying, cabinet-climbing, tapwater-slurping, babydoll-shampooing, soapbubble-obsessed short people that frequent the watering holes of this household.

     The Girls.

     I have two of my own: the 6 ½ year old and the 3 ½ year old. I also keep spares of these: more daycare kids, and a regular convoy of friendly working mommies.

     Friendly, working mommies, you are exempt from the aforementioned suspect list. I will, however, need you to stay in town in order to remind me that one day I’ll laugh about things like piss-on-the-counters. It might get funnier faster if there were some form of “adult juice” involved in those discussions.

     The darkened yellow puddle now dripped off the holder of the-very-thing-that-should-be-used-to-clean-it-up and spilled over the edge of the counter, slid down the cabinet, and created a pool on the floor.

     I rolled my eyes, sighed, and went back to collect my cleaning supplies.

     And I’d thought I’d “clocked out” at 8:00pm when I’d finally – gratefully, blessedly, necessarily—tucked my kids into bed.

     As I wiped pee off the bottom of the holder, I fully realized the culprit had intentionally covered the evidence. The only way to get the pee Up There would be to climb up the toilet seat and perch on the edge of the counter—as A Little would have to do in order to reach the soap on the other side of the sink, or to lean over to slurp water from the spicket. In order to do either of those things on the four inches of counter space, they would have had to move the TP holder out of the way first.

     Having done just that, and then perched precariously on the edge of the crime scene, the peeing would have thus commenced. Most likely, this was the direct result of a full-to-bursting bladder, an overly occupied mind, and the gurgling of tapwater running down the drain suddenly crashing into one another.

     We can discuss intent later.

     I can almost picture it—the moment of backing up to climb down, when The Little’s mouth rounds into a perfect “O,” and he or she glances rapidly around to see who has witnessed their crime. No one comes, so their eyes fall to the TP holder and light up with the realization that they needed to return it to its original spot! Exactly in the spot where the evidence was!

     It was the perfect crime.

     Until the time-honored search for a Kleenex and a nose with a talent for sniffing out trouble inadvertently led me to the buried pool of piss.

    The crime scene has been discovered. There is proof of a cover-up (tampering with evidence). There is a list of suspects, all of whom have connections to the crime scene and weak alibis (opportunity). But the time of the crime could not be determined due to the inactivity and isolation of the area in this spring month, and motive cannot yet be pinpointed for any of the suspects.

     Of course, they have all entered “not guilty” pleas.

     The D.H. (District Husband) probably won’t grant me a warrant to collect DNA samples from the suspects because my case is circumstantial at best, and inconclusive in the least.

     Besides, the suspects have parented up and been released on their own recognizance for the weekend.

     Even now, my lead suspect sleeps soundly in the next room, her pink cheeks pressed against the babydoll she named after me, and her little fingers caught in golden curls that spill across her Dora-printed pillow.

     Yeah, sure they all look innocent when they sleep. But mark my words, I’ll find out whodunit the next time I find pee on my countertop.

     (Now there’s a sentence you don’t get to say everyday...)