breaking toilets on birthdays

One of my favorite stories for one of my closest friends to tell is how I broke a toilet. It is true, there is a part of me that likes to hear her tell it. So I broke a toilet. On my birthday. Not years ago when I was young and stupid but last year to be exact. Now it wasn’t what you envision for the typical toilet breaking one might find themselves in, no mine is different. Mine is special.

So this is how I happen to break a toilet on my 31^st birthday. Every birthday I choose a different venue a bar with dancing- a house with alcohol and the possibility of dancing and that is where I usually get into a host of trouble which can include a) making out with random boys maybe in pizza line maybe not b) arm wrestling a dude and actually winning c) throwing up and returning to the party d) my nose v. asphalt fight e) usually a lot of fun. Always e, always e. So my last birthday, I found my way to the make out room. I partook in many things that night mostly some very possible deal breakers shot of tequila, a few margaritas, a few okay a lot more beers. The thing is on your birthday before you are done with one drink there is another in your hand. It’s like magic. But the kind that will hurt the next day. Still there is this momentum of it. I have the alcoholic bones so those think go down more quickly that I would like to admit. Next thing I know the lights are on and we are out the door.

Walking not very quickly, walking not very straight, but walking nonetheless. So after we-me and the friend the storyteller (R)-decided to hail a cab for some dudes who were bothering us. There are tons of inequalities in the world that favor men over ladies but hailing cabs, hailing cabs, sorry fellas that is our domain. So we hail the cab to ditch the guys and decide we will walk home. Walk home. We get into conversations on the way. With randoms. With each other. We turn onto Dolores. And I see a toilet. We see a toilet. Toilet standing alone. Alone on the sidewalk. In front of a fancy Victorian that you dream you might get invited to.

It seems like the best idea in the world to pretend to use the toilet. That is what R thought. But me I was going for the gold- I thought it would be funny to actually pee in the toilet. A thought that would only make sense to a drunken birthday girl at 3 am. Yes it made sense then, now it doesn’t of course. I have a laundry list of drunken ideas that I thought would rival Bill Gates genius only to learn later not so much. So down come the panties pulled around and down my legs. R is pulling out her camera to take a picture not knowing how far I am going to take it. I am taking it too far. I am squatting and the moment I am about to sit. The crash. Crashing down at 3 am in a silent dead very nice neighborhood. I am running. She is running. I am trying to pull up my panties while sprinting at a shameful miserable pace. I used to be a sprinter but never drunk did I run. We are laughing. I look back, we look back to see the toilet in a million pieces. Million pieces on Dolores. I just turned 31 and I am disturbing the neighbors because I broke a toilet, a freestanding toilet on the sidewalk. We laugh all the way home and every time she tells the story. It’s not everyday it’s your birthday. It’s not everyday you break a toilet.