casualty of our new place

[Disclaimer: What you are about to read is slightly disturbing and downright gross. Proceed with caution before reading, especially if you are eating.]

The first casualty of our new place was actually an air freshener dispenser. Well, more specifically, it was 6 small bugs, but followed soon after by the air freshener in its surprising demise.

I know, it doesn’t seem possible for anything to actually happen to it since it’s only job is to sit in one place, passively releasing its smell. And it wasn’t even a fancy plug-in type (since we have a shortage of outlets in the joint). It was the most basic type that you place on a table. We bought it soon after we got here to mask the mustiness of this place, certainly a tall order for a small air freshener.

So, the other morning when I woke up, Husband announces in a quiet voice:

“Something’s happened to the air freshener.”

What?

He continued: “It fell in the toilet.”

I thought I maybe misunderstood him in my semi-awake state, especially when said the next part, in an even quieter tone.

”And you peed on it.”

Yikes! As if it wasn’t hard enough to believe that it 1) fell in the toilet, I somehow strained to comprehend how 2) I actually urinated on it!

He then offered an explanation. Since the location of the air freshener was on the too-tiny counter of our bathroom, Husband decided before we went to bed to move it to help save space. Husband then placed it on its new location on top of the wall-mounted hair dryer. About an hour after we went to sleep, in its apparent suicide attempt, the air freshener jumped off the blow dryer and landed, with a crash, into the toilet. Plunk.

I wasn’t aware of any of this, as I was enjoying some beauty sleep. I then got up in the night for one of my ritual nightly bathroom trips, unknowingly contaminating the water for the air freshener that lurked below.

Husband didn’t realize that the air freshener actually fell into the toilet, until he saw it in the morning bobbing like a buoy in a sea of pee.

I still couldn’t believe the situation and started a line of questioning that sounded like this…

“But why did you move it?” (Husband answer: “To conserve space”)

“But why on top of the hair dryer? That surface isn’t even flat.” (Husband answer: “But it fit on top of there and seemed like it would stay.”)

“But why didn’t you let me know it fell in the toilet before I peed on it?” (Husband answer: “I didn’t know it fell in the toilet. I just heard a crash and thought it fell on the floor.”)

“So…um, where is the air freshener now?” (Husband answer: “I took it out of the toilet.”)

“Ewww! Did you wash your hands??” (Husband answer: “No.”)

Don’t worry, Husband was being sarcastic in the last answer and did, in fact, wash his hands.

Though not an expert on air fresheners, I figured that its pee bath would not render it capable of doing its job of emitting a good smell and I deposited it in the trash.

We have not found a replacement for the air freshener yet. But when we do, I can guarantee that we will put it in any location except on the mounted hair dryer.