Then it was time to pack up and go home. I fastened the kitchen door shut, swept the floors, unplugged all appliances, put the smoke alarm back up on the wall, packed up the trash to take away, checked that the sticky refrigerator door was actually shut, put all perishable food into the freezer, wiped the counters off and then went to the bathroom for one final visit before taking off in the car. I turned the water to the toilet back on to be able to flush it. We have to keep it off because the seal at the base has been leaking. (something to bring up with the landlord). As I flushed the toilet I noticed with growing alarm that the water was not going down. In fact it was rising much much higher. Yikes! It crested just at the lip of the toilet and stayed there. When it lowered a bare inch I took the plunger and gave it a few swooshes to try to get it to go down. Which it did. But then an alarming event began to unfold....a fountain of toilet water began to cascade up out of the drain in the shower. This was not a gentle trickle of water but a firehose of icky brownish toilet water aiming for the ceiling. AAAAAIIIIIIGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!
I reached for the plunger to simply try to block the shower drain. I was struggling against some sort of terrible force of nature. I using all my force to try to plug the drain and it was trying with all sorts of evil malicious intent to come in. I was trying not to get this wet yuckiness all over my clothes or body. When the water came to a standstill just at the lip of the shower door, I felt I had to do something else, just in case the water kept rising and eventually poured over into the bathroom. I ran out into the garage/art studio to look for some sort of container and found an old dusty plastic bin. Dragging it and a scooper can into the bathroom I began to try to out scoop the toilet water fountain in the shower. After moments of frantic scooping, I noticed that the fountain appeared to be slowing. Oh Thank God. Then in the next few minutes the drain reversed it's self and became a drain one again.
I stood there in exhausted relief before I began to drag the bin out of the house and poured the water onto the cactus struggling to live in the desert climate. I got out the bottle of disinfectant and cleaned out the shower which was now empty of errant toilet water. I wiped up the toilet and poured some disinfectant down it just in case and then wiped up the floor just for good measure. I rechecked that the toilet was turned off and washed my hands. One last glance around the little house, everything back in order and then went down to the corner park to use the toilet. Then I got in my car to drive home.