What to do

Today I lost two dollars.

This adventure actually started yesterday, when Sarah and I found ourselves with a broken (so we thought) toilet (gross).

This morning I received a text while mostly asleep, which I ignored, and then read when mostly awake, an hour later. It was from Sarah. It read: (1/2)"So our toilet is still ducked. It drained so I tried to see if it would flush this morning and it almost flooded again. My advice would be if you need t.........(2/2)o use it flush it Asian style with a bucket of water. Ghetto"
Good thing I didn't need to pee. Good thing I was going somewhere (school) where there were an abundance of toilets.

I then phoned and described the situation to my mother who told me to phone Laura (my landlady). Thirty seconds after hanging up she phoned back to ask if I had called her. Through a giant mouthful of Cheerios, I told her no, as I had had no time between the snapping shut of my phone and the picking up of my spoon. Thirty seconds after that, I called and left a message with Laura.

By the end of the day Laura still hadn't called back, and though I had returned home to take a shower, I knew I couldn't stay for long in the now third-world ghettoness of my home. So, off to Starbucks I went, a place I knew would never be un-of-a-toilet, what with the majority of their sales in one form of diuretic or another. Several hours and two large americanos later, I was ready for what I had actually gone there for. I needed to pee.

Off I went, and felt, as one should, decidedly satisfied with the world. As I got up from my cold ceramic seat, I turned around just in time to see a toonie fall out of my pocket and straight into the toilet.

What to do.

Really. What to do.

I considered the glittering coin from three different angles:
1) As a poor student
2) As a girl and;
3) As a person who was already quite familiar with toilet troubles

Though I realized that two dollars wasn't really worth it, I realized that actually, it was. It was gross, probably the grossest thing I would ever have done to date. That left me with three options:
a) Leave the toonie and flush the toilet, with the possibility that a flush+coin might = disaster
b) Leave the toonie and the toilet with no flush, saving the possibility of danger and disgust for another, braver soul or;
c) Get the toonie. (And flush, c'mon people)

Somehow, option c) got the better of me, so I rolled up my sleeve and, with the courage of a Fear Factor contestant, plunged my hand into the toilet. Silently screaming, I kicked the door of the stall open and shot straight for the sink, at which point I turned the tap to burn-me-at-the-stake hot and let the pain disinfect my hand. Two washes with a 10 to 1 soap to water solution later, I had damaged nerve endings and a successfully cleansed hand (make that two).

Somewhat mollified by the fact I had at least gotten my two dollars back, I headed home with my mother, who had graciously agreed to pick me up and have a look at my plumbing, as Laura had finally called with some suggestions.
As I got out of the car, it hit me. Sitting in the sink in the bathroom at Starbucks, were my two dollars.

I don't know what's worse, that I went through that trauma for nothing, or that some stranger is going to pick up two dollars that has been sitting in my urine.

Well, at least my toilet's fixed.