What Harm Can 13 Legos Do?

You may not want to know the answer to that question. Consider that your warning.

Legos- those simple little toys that keep my children busy for hours. As I watch them play, I can convince myself I am raising both unique creative expressionists and genius structural engineers. Until a few months ago, I never understood the dark, evil side to Legos.

If you remember, I mentioned then some trouble I was having with our bathrooms, partly due to the main bathroom not flushing correctly. We couldn't figure out what was wrong: the plunger would eventually get it down, when we snaked it the auger seemed to meet a little resistance and then go through, but left on its own it just wouldn't flush down. Oh, what could be the problem?

Never the procrastinators, we trained the kids (sort of) to use other toilets and did our best to ignore that bathroom for a couple months. When Peter's parents flew out to visit, his dad gave us a stern look and took matters into his own hands. He removed the toilet and flipped it on its side. After a long while finagling, we could finally see what was stuck in the U-turn of the toilet. Guess what was lodged there all that time? Yep. Legos. And they weren't coming out.

So we snaked the auger from above while trying to chopstick them out underneath. When they came down low enough, I got a chisel and hammer. I was the one to actually get the 1st pieces separated. Once apart, they fell out easily enough. If only there had been one set. There were three different statues flushed down that toilet. The process reminded me (a little uncomfortably) of giving birth. To triplets. Only without the screaming and with a chisel.

All finished, 13 Legos exited that toilet. My brother-in-law, who happened to be in town and was coerced into assisting my father-in-law with the whole operation, offered to grab the camera for a picture. Think about where those Legos had been for weeks. Think about the multiple bumps and indentations a Lego contains. Now thank me that I declined the offer.