That one time we paid $30
Thursday, March 1, 2012 at 12:00AM One day in Costa Rica we decided to hit up a place called Manuel Antonio Park. Or something. I'm sure about the Manuel Antonio part. Many people who had already been to Costa Rica said it was fabulous, so off we went in search of beautiful beaches, plenty of wild animals, and soon enough....
I needed a bathroom.
We also planned on getting a cabina (like a little motel room slash shack) for the night near Manuel Antonio. And this is where our shelter needs and my bathroom needs collided. Normally we would have waited until the last minute to find our cabina, but I needed a bathroom, and NOW, so I was like, "How bout we just kill two birds with one stone? And BAM, we found a cabina just like that.
The cabina rental guy was very smooth and rented us one right at the gates of the Park for $30! While Tyler sunblocked up in a nearby parking lot with wild iguanas looking on, the kids and I interacted with the cabina rental guy, let's call him Pablo. Pablo showed us the brightly colored cabinas and talked about the amenities. Air conditioning! Beds! Cue end of amenities. Oh wait, Toilet too!
I had to go SO bad that I was like yah, Pablo, shut up! Just give me the keys already. And so he did, and so I ran inside and took care of biz. When I was done, I saw this leeeetle teeensie sign on the wall across from me. It said:
"Please no put paper higenic inside of toilet. Please put in near trash bin."
Oh! Sweet! Great news. I had just um, used a lot and yeah, I put it in the toilet like normal, dangit.
But what was there to do, beside just flush and move on with my life. It wasn't yellow, so I couldn't possibly let it mellow! Right?!
Flash forward. 8 seconds forward to be exact, when the toilet began to show strong signs of overflowing.
Flash forward again, 45 seconds when Tyler had returned to the cabina to find me frantically panicking (redundant?) and looking for a plunger. Where would this plunger be? Under the bed or under the air conditioner. Those were my choices. Naturally it took me about 1 second to check both of those places and when the plunger was not found, the other 44 seconds were spent running around the room in a panic.
Tyler used his brain. He went and told Pablo that we had a little problem. Pablo came running with a mini plunger. Why mini? Did the $30 not include use of a regular sized, useful plunger? Pablo had every inention of solving this toilet clog himself. I, on the other hand, was not about to let a stranger see my not-yellow deposit so I pried the plunger from his hands and escaped to the bathroom, none to soon. I couldn't quite get the right plunging action down. Tyler had to help. It was tiring, using this mini plunger. And, dirty.
Thankfully, a mega crisis was everted, but not without a lot of embarrassment. Also, the toilet never recovered. It was that, and the fact that when Tyler sat down on the bed for less than a minute to rest, then felt bugs biting his perfect bum on the bed, that swayed us to make the decision to WALK AWAY from this cabina.
That cabina was bad news.
We left. We never checked to see what the bugs were (would you?) and we were gracious enough to leave a little "gift" leftover in the bathroom. So kind!
Pablo looked confused as we ran out.
Oh well.
Now, see, a normal blogger would probably have chosen another moment from this day at Manuel Antonio to share with his/her audience. But we never said we were normal.
Perhaps I should have shared the moment when we found ourselves surrounded by monkeys on our hike to the beach? And how they were so happy and jovial at first, then suddenly they turned on Tyler and made these crazy scary faces?
Maybe they were friends of Pablo?
Sheesh, learn to brush teeth, man!
And this guy was pretty cool.
Reader Comments (9)
Also, I can't wait to read the slew of overflowing poop toilet stories this solicits. Can't. Wait.
I used to think monkeys were cute and adorable. I used to think they were my favorite animal.
Then I met asian monkeys. They are NOT cute or adorable. They are NOT my favorite. They are the DEVIL!
That. is. all.
(Also, Doug almost got murdered by monkeys in Thailand. True story Dorothy Gish.)