I get up and do all but smack him in the butt to get him moving faster than "I'll get up the stairs by February" to find that there's a good quarter-inch of water on the floor, the toilet is still running and adding to the growing lake, and apparently, he thought he was going to sop this up with two small dishrags.
I love the boy, but he doesn't exactly think things through.
Yeah, I was more than a hair on the frustrated side, but action was required first. I wade in, soaking my socks, and get the john to stop running, and set the boy to laying down a barrier of towels to stop the water getting out onto the landing carpet any more than it has. With some direction (you wouldn't think this was that hard, but when you've never had to do it, I guess you have to be taught), I start him getting the water up while I plunge the john and get that sorted out (I swear, why someone with such a tiny butt uses so much T.P., I'll never know). This leads to a good half-hour of using every towel in the house to get the water soaked up, but in the end, we handled it. I was in a bit of a hurry, as I know that water leaks down through somewhere in the floor under the bathroom and drips out in my kitchen ceiling; I did NOT know that there was another spot at the doorway that drips down through the wall and comes out in my laundry room doorway, but I do now.
Anyway, eventually, it was all cleaned up, and I was soaked to the bone from wringing out the towels. I'm rather proud of myself for keeping any temper in check the whole time and treating it fairly lightly. I could have gotten bent with him not only not fixing the toilet but letting it run while he slowly moseyed his way around, but that would have just made him shut down and get all hurt, and then it'd be like pulling teeth to get any work out of him. Besides, it's not like he was bad, just slow and unthinking. I even managed to address the T.P. issue without getting him too embarrassed, so, yeah, score one for The StepDad.
Today, wash all the towels...
