MicroHorror

“There is no-one living in the toilet!” I had tried to reason with my young son, but he insisted he couldn’t use our bathroom because of the man in the toilet bowl. My patience with Gerry was running thin.

“Da man in the toilet wanna touch my bo-bos,” Gerry said. You can thank my wife for teaching him to call his nuts “bo-bos.”

“Nobody wants to touch your bo-bos!”

“Da man in the toilet do,” Gerry insisted.

“There is no man in the toilet!”

“Dere is! I seen him in dere! I seen his face!”

“What you saw was your own reflection in the water,” I told him.

“Den why I doan see him in da school toilet? Or at gamma-gampa’s?”

I didn’t have an answer for that, and that made me even angrier. I hated losing arguments to a toddler.

“Look, Gerry,” I said, placing my hands on his small shoulders. “You’re a big boy now, and big boys use the toilet. Big boys don’t think there’s a man living in the toilet bowl.” Gerry’s bottom lip began to quiver, and his eyes filled with tears. “You’re staying in there until you use the toilet.”

Gerry’s tears overflowed, and as he turned toward the toilet silent sobs shook his small frame. He walked toward the commode like a death row inmate toward the electric chair. The poor kid–I couldn’t take it. But maybe there could be a compromise…

“Gerry, how about if I use the toilet first to show you it’s okay?” Gerry sniffed and nodded his head, wiping tears with the back of his hand.

I walked toward the toilet and, standing in front of it, I unzipped my fly.

“No, Daddy,” Gerry said. “You gotta sit.”

I started to argue the point. “Why do I gotta…” then I thought, what the hell, if it’ll get the kid over his fear. “Okay, I’ll sit. You wait outside.”

Gerry shuffled out of the bathroom, and I closed the door. I walked back to the toilet and dropped my pants and jockey shorts down to my ankles. I squatted down on the bowl.

“I’m sitting down!” I hollered at Gerry through the door. “Everything’s fine!” Then I heard bubbling in the water beneath me. I jumped, and looked down between my legs into the bowl. There was a man in there! I nearly leapt to my feet before I realized it was my own face I saw reflected in the water. I chuckled, and settled back down on the seat. When after a few moments I felt cold, wet fingers reach up and caress my testicles, I screamed. I jumped to my feet and yanked my pants up. I edged my head over the bowl and peered in. Just my reflection. But I couldn’t explain away the wet spot in my jockeys from the toilet water on my balls.

“You okay, Daddy?” Gerry asked from outside the bathroom door, his voice shaky. I buckled my pants and opened the door.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said, tousling his hair. “And you don’t have to use the toilet if you don’t want to.”

“Yay!” Gerry yelled, taking off down the hallway. “I doan hafta use da toilet! I doan hafta use da toilet!”

Gerry almost ran into my wife, who was standing in the hallway. She gave me a curious look. All I could do was rub my bo-bos and shrug.