So yesterday, I dropped five bucks in the toilet.
After I peed and before I flushed.
Accidentally, of course. Not as an experiment or anything. It took a dive from out of my back pocket somehow and didn’t write a suicide note, so I figured it didn’t have some death-by-drowning-in-pee wish.
And this is just between you and me, but I pulled that Lincoln-faced bad boy out with my bare hands.
Oh yes I did.
It was a public restroom, so how nasty could it be?
I once dropped a pager into the toilet and it didn’t survive the bath, but five bucks? Five bucks totally stays alive in a bowl of pee, amiright? A few minutes under the hand dryer and you go back out and buy yourself a beer with it.
I’m pretty sure if my husband finds out, though, he’ll want to throw it and everything I wore last night into the laundry.
A minimum of four times. In hot water. He’d probably bleach Abe’s face right off.
But isn’t pee supposed to be sterile or something? I mean, hasn’t some survival guy or two drank it to stay alive until the giant Bassett Hound with the little rum barrel around its neck showed up?
Surely I’m not the only one whose gone porcelain bowl fishing.
I had a friend who dropped his teeth in the toilet. I guess that’s all part of getting old.
Ewwwwww! OK, if that doesn’t beat them all, I don’t know what does. It takes a lot of mental something or other to overcome that, brush it off, and stick it back in your mouth again.
Besides, if you saw some of the places I’ve been in to get merchandise, toilets are nothing.
I’m not sure I even want to think about, let alone hear about some of the places you’ve been in. Hey, I know! You should do a TV show about that. 😉 And since you’re auctioneers, you wouldn’t even have to have the psycho people who try to help, you just go in, film the hoarder’s palace, grab some stuff, and get the hell out.
Money is germ-ridden anyway.
I’ll tell this story as politely as I can.
I was in Walmart, and the call of nature came screaming around the bend like that train in that movie with Denzel Washington. And there were kids and a schoolbus and a paint factory and everything dangerous in its path. So I went into the Walmart restroom, a place I usually reserve for acute desperation. I sat my purse on the back of the tank. To this day I don’t know why. I need to explain that my purse is one of these. http://shop.littlearth.com/s.nl/sc.10/category.4107/.f
I did what I had to do, stood up, and as I was pulling up pants I heard the unmistakable sound of small metal feet losing purchase on a (as it happens) an ever so slightly angled toilet tank.Â
And a muffled splash.Â
If it was any other purse I’d have rescued the contents, shoved it in the trash, and promptly purchased another one from Walmart. But, c’mon. EIGHTY DOLLARS. Â I performed the necessary water rescue. I did what I could with TP. Then I calmly went out to the sink and scrubbed it with soap. When I got home I discarded anything and everything that wasn’t absolutely vital even though the bag is completely water tight. More scrubbing and disinfecting ensued. I wouldn’t carry gum or chapstick in it for a year.Â
I still have it. Because EIGHTY DOLLARS.Â
Oh Mah Gah! I have so many things to tell you:
1. I love you.
2. I love that you shared this story.
3. it is an AWESOME story! <— to be sung to the tune of a gay man who really really loves something.
4. You had me at "I'll tell this story as politely as I can"
5. I learned about the classic super cyclone – I'd never even heard of these before.
6. OMG! 80 dollars!
7. This story was wonderful from the very first line to the very last line.
Mouth. Hanging. Open.
Margaret, I thought for sure you were going to say you *wanted* to dive back in after it but the automatic flush took it away before you had a chance.
Ugh. If I did that I’d buy anything immediately just to get rid of it.
I was going to say the same thing: pee is sterile. You’re good. Go buy yourself a beer with that bad urine soaked boy!
OK, I think we have a majority. Pee is sterile. So it is written. So it shall be.
Honey, that is just wrong on so many levels. If it was $100, I might grab it too. But $5? No.
So your boundaries are $95 further out than mine. 🙂
I’ve fished out less valuable stuff, but I generally find something with which to pin the item to the side of the toilet while I flush, thus rinsing the item out a bit and leaving a window of opportunity to dry-hand grab it or just lift it out with the aforementioned item. Â In a public toilet, one might not have such an item handy, of course. Â Were I in your situation, I might have used a pen from my purse, assuming such and such.
That….is a brilliant idea. So items to include in my purse now are foot long grabbie thingies and arm length latex gloves.
+1 for the Saint Bernard with the little barrel… Â Priceless…
You have to drink your own pee because, from what I learned from those awesome cartoons when I was young, he shows up, cracks it open like a little mini bar, mixes up an awesome martini, drinks it, and then runs away going “woof…woof…hic!…woof…woof…hic!”  hehehehe…  😉
Sounds like we watched the same cartoons. I’m also reminded of scenes where people and/or animals sing, “How dry I am…”.
Girl, I love you! But the ONLY way I’d ever stick my bare hands into a pee-filled-public-toilet was if I accidentally dropped my cell-phone in there. You are too funny. I hope you enjoyed the beer!
I feel like I need carry latex gloves with me now. Arm length latex gloves. I could start a whole new fashion movement.
Oh hails yes!
I think I remember a Friends episode where Joey peed on Monica’s leg when she got stung by a jelly fish. I totally would have grabbed that fiver if I peed on it. Good for you!Â
Ha! Thanks, Dana! So pee isn’t such a bad thing, then.
I’d probably do the same thing. Â Isn’t money supposed to be totally dirty anyway because it’s handled by so many people? Â What’s a little urine going to hurt it?
Well that’s true. There are some nasty people out there, touching nasty things, and then handing you a five dollar bill. Me, for example.
Oh I forgot, in the same bank the letter box was at the right level to pee into… and the drunks often did on their way home.
Okay, I’m going to have to go EWWWWWW!
Karen – you beat me to the punch on the Ewwwww. 🙂
I worked in a bank in the days when they handled cash. We were very careful about washing our hands. The worse was money from the butchers all ‘meaty’..
When I was throwing up at a party I took my white gold earings off and put them down (in the toilet). The next day my hostess gave me one survivor back
I’m such a germaphobe about some things. I mean, I flush the toilet with my foot, but I’ll plunge my hand in the bowl – how does that even make sense?
I too would plumb the depths for a fiver. You could almost buy a magarita with that! Also, I carry this bottle of Dr.Bronner’s lavender hand sanitizer (in the handy purse-sized spray bottle), so that bad boy would’ve gotten a serious spritzing before being spent appropriately.Â
So sweet thing, add a Google+ icon if you can, so I can +1 you all over the place!Â
I’m so glad you brought up the Google +1 button – I got rid of several separate plugins and added one that does them all, including Google +. So if you decide to +1 me all over the place, let me know if it doesn’t work.
Thanks again, Karen!
You are right on all accounts: I would have gone in after it, washed me & it with hot soapy water and dried it under the hand dryer; pee-pee is sterile (until it hits the air) but it’s the toilet that I would worry about; and my hubby would have wanted to wash everything 5 times in hot water – or just thrown it all out. TeeHee
See? This is why we don’t tell them anything. They would just flush money down the toilet. Money!
lol, A girl gotta do what she has to do…
I have definitely gone porcelain bowl fishing for my phone. Had to use an ear piece for the next week cos I sure wasnt ready to let that thingy touch my sterile ears. But we are good now.
That’s hysterical, having to use your ear piece. And I love that I’m not the only one dropping things in the toy-toy, let alone fishing them out.
If you find people reluctant to shake hands with you at the next bloggers conference, you’ll know why. Â
Yep. That’s the risk of using this venue to tell my story, I guess. Maybe they’ll “forget” this part when they meet me.
What you have there is “dirty money” in the true sense of the word.
You said it. 🙂
All I can say is I’m glad I couldn’t possible get the $5 as it does the circuit 😉
You did wash it before drying it, I take it? That makes it OK. $5 is not to be sniffed at – especially that one 😉
not to be sniffed at – LOL! And while you may not get MY $5 dollars, there could be a 5 pound note waiting just for you. 😉
Oh, thanks! Now I’ll think of that every £5 note I get 🙂
Totally would’ve done the same thing and not told the husband. Â
I appreciate that validation, my friend. 🙂
Funny, I JUST swore to myself that i would never tell this to anyone, but now I feel summoned by god to tell…here goes: Just moments ago i used a Starbucks toilet (that is not the gross part) & right after i got up I saw 3 to 5 curly black pupes directly under my sheet protector!! I hope it that slick, thin piece of paper did it’s job!Â
Hee hee!! I love that God opened your mouth here to tell your story. And while we’re here, let’s thank Him for toilet seat protectors.
I’m suddenly imagining the barman cashing up at the end of the night and catching a whiff of urine… I wonder how often that actually happens.
Ewww!! Wait – what am I saying? I fished money out of the toilet.
Well … money is money, but I would probably have let it go unless the public toilet had a container of clorox that I could disinfect with. 10 bucks is a different story, Clorox or no Clorox I’m going fishing, but that’s just me.Â
See? We all have our price. 🙂
I’d do it and have done it. Money is money even if it is dirty money.
I know, right???
Heck, Mr. Lincoln may of come out of the porcelain throne with fewer germs that it went in with!!! Heeehehehe!
Yep, pee is suppose to be sterile…it’s just the other stuff that goes down that drain that bothers me.
I must confess…I have put my hand in more that once to retrieve somethin’. ‘Don’t know if I could ever bring myself to dive into a public potty though.
Have a great day!!! Â :o)
Yeah, I’ve read that pee is sterile until it actually comes out of you. Luckily, I didn’t research that until after my fishing expedition.
I love your logic for finding it okay to fish the $5 bill out of the toilet. I’m hoping it rinsed off before putting it under the dryer and not just baked the pee on it. I’m also hoping you used it immediately and let some poor sucker have the pee-stained bill in their possession. Let’s just hope you don’t get it back.
Have you seen that movie, Twenty Bucks? Where you follow the path of a twenty dollar bill, and who ends up with it and how. They totally could have used that idea.
I’ve done worse things retrieving a quarter.
Perhaps I’ve said too much.
You always say too much. Thank God.
My Mommeh would have fished it out, too. But she would have spent it as soon as it dried off. I think she would have flushed a single dollar though.
It’s all relative, I guess. I would stop at anything below, say, two dollars and fifty cents. Although I think I would just take the two dollars and leave the coins in the “fountain”. Maybe make a wish or something before I flushed.
I’m soo totally with you. I’d have gone fishing for that Lincoln as well. I’ve managed to drop my phone in the toilet once but that was before I peed. Had to get it replaced cuz it was toast. One of my coworkers dropped her pager in the toilet once too. We try not to take our electronics in the bathrooms at work now lol
I know! Going to the bathroom these days is like going through airport security, where you have to remove all electronic devices from your person before going through.
For five bucks, I’d do the same. A single, maybe not. And coins in the S-bend? Forget it.
Ha! At first I debated clarifying that the 5 bucks was one single bill, as opposed to 500 pennies, because even though 500 pennies constitutes 5 bucks, I think I would have left that in the toilet. Because I, too, have boundaries.
The publicist says money is already the dirtiest thing around
That’s so true. We should be washing our hands every time we buy something.
I kind of never want to touch money again.
I mean, I totally would have retrieved the five dollars too. But I never want to touch money again.
LOL! I know…it’s so GROSS!!!! Sorry about that.