"Mom, There's a Rodent in the Toilet!"

Pin It Okay - this has nothing to do with gluten-free baking, but its such a bizarre story that I have to share it anyway.  This actually happened to us today.  My daughter, age 10, comes SCREAMING out of the bathroom, pants around her knees, with a TERRIFIED expression on her face. In broken, breathless phrases, she says, "Mom . . there's . . .  a . . . rodent . . . IN THE TOILET!"  As she calmed herself a bit, she explained that while sitting on the toilet, she heard a splashing sound but didn't think much of it. Then she heard it again. So she stood up to check and saw a dark, wet furry creature head for the pipe hole and disappear. I, being the ever brave matron of the house, grabbed a ruler and tip-toed to the bathroom. I leaned my head into the bathroom, not willing to fully commit myself to being IN the bathroom.  Fortunately for me, I saw nothing so I used my ruler to close the toilet lid and flush it. I shut the door and called my husband.

Dear hubby explained to me that there is a vent pipe on our roof that allows the sewer gases to vent out. It is likely that our rodent was a squirrel who climbed or fell into the vent on the roof and slipped down the pipe, ending up in our toilet. He likely won't be able to climb back up the pipe and show himself again so he'll probably drown in the sewer pipes, never to be seen again. We'll just hope he has been flushed away - not that I have anything against squirrels. I just don't like them in my toilet!