I learned (last night) that if Ellen times it just right, and hits it just so, she can get a tube of skin moisturizer about the length and shape of her forearm* to flush straight down the toilet, no muss, no fuss.

There was just so much funny there. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ellen flushing one of Olivia's post-bedtime commando potties. Without looking, she put her hand down on the side of the counter, and poink!!!, up went this plastic tube of some sort. You know, the kind with a wide round front and a flat fishtail rear? Hopped in the air a good three feet off the counter, then barrel-rolled three, maybe four times. As a slow-motion look of horror hit Ellen's face, it did this perfect nose-down entry, straight down the throat of the toilet.

Now, our toilet barely manages to do the job it's built for, so I figured, as I turned toothbrush-in-mouth to actually look at what was going on, that we'd have some amusing sleeve-up reaching real soon. Then I saw Ellen doing her classic "surprised horror" act. Her eyes got about three times bigger than normal, then her arms shot out with clenched claws, then they came up to her cheeks as she rapidly hop-hop-hopped the way she does when things get completely out of control.

Me: "You have got to be kidding me."

Ellen: "No! No! That's not possible!"

"You did not just flush a whole tube of something down the toilet."

"It was moisturizer! Expensive special order moisturizer! It was almost new!"

"You flushed a whole tube of moisturizer. Down the toilet."

"It's!!!" *hop* *hop* *hop* "Awful!! It was really expensive!!!"

At this point friends, I couldn't hold it together any longer. I just barely managed not to snog toothpaste out of my nose, rinsed, and then positively collapsed. We're talking that huge, hooting, spasming laugh; the kind of laugh that makes your belly feel like it's cracking apart like paint on a balloon.

The next day, one of her Vet doctor friends explained, quite helpfully, that she probably could get it back.

"Thanks, no. I don't care how expensive it was, I don't need it back that badly."

----
* On reviewing the draft of this post, Ellen: "No. NO. NO. It was not as big as my forearm. It was as big as my hand!"

Me: *blink* *blink*

"It was! It was really small!"

"You flushed a tube of moisturizer as big as your hand down the toilet."

"Yes!"

"Yeah. That makes it much better."

"Oh just shut up."