“Never go on trips with anyone you do not love” — Ernest Hemingway

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“Is everything okay in there?”

Everything was not okay in there. He stared downward in frustration and rising anger, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Insanity, indeed.

“I’ll be out in a second,” he yelled back to her.

The water would slowly drain, but that’s all that would go away. The toilet was well plugged, and no amount of plunging or flushing was making a difference.

“No tenga pena.” That’s what the owner of the apartment had said, insisting they feel free to contact her for anything they need. Don’t be ashamed.

Well, Él tiene pena.

Quietly, he put the plunger down and gave up. After one more futile flush, he opened the door, his face stone as he looked at the questioning expression of his wife.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“The toilet’s clogged,” he said gravely, anger thinly veiled.

“Oh,” she replied. “Oh boy.” She pursed her lips, needing to use the restroom herself. “Do you want me to try plunging it?”

“Absolutely not,” he replied immediately, blocking the door of the bathroom.

“But I need to go, too,” she said without a lack of desperation.

Well, that is a problem, he thought. One he didn’t really have a solution for.

“Just let me try,” she insisted.

“I already plunged the hell out of it!” he replied with anxiety rising, peering back over his shoulder at the pena behind him.

“Well, do you have a plan?” she asked gently. He did not have a plan, no. “Let me just try,” she soothed.

Slowly, he stepped away from the door, inching further and further away, then bolted to the bedroom, diving onto the bed and burying his head under the pillows with a wail.

She doubled over laughing.

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He stood around with all the pena, making idle smalltalk–in Spanish–with the apartment owner, as the other worker tried to get the toilet flushing again.

“Y la próxima semana, arreglaré el aire acondicionado,” she said.

“Oh, sí?” he replied. Sure would be nice right now, he thought, as he and his wife had been suffering from the heat the whole stay.

“Sí.” She rolled her eyes with exasperation, as though she were the one so inconvenienced by the tardiness of the air conditioner repair.

He spent the ensuing pause searching the few Spanish words bouncing around his brain for something to say, but she rescued him.

“Lo siento para el inodoro,” she offered.

“Oh, está bien,” he lied graciously. The toilet was enormously annoying, but the damage had been done, and the pena had mostly subsided by now.

The worker came out of the restroom, saying a bunch of things that he couldn’t follow. The apartment owner helpfully simplified things for him, saying it should be good to go.

“Muchas gracias,” he thanked them both.

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“I really don’t think you should,” he said.

After the second time that the attendant had come by to try unclogging the toilet, she’d said it should work okay for them. But, she said she was going to have to get an actual plumber out later in the week.

“I don’t feel like going downstairs,” she replied.

He thought she should just use the restroom down in the lobby of the building, rather than risk clogging their dicey commode a third time.

“You’re taking your life in your hands,” he called to her as she shut the door.

When she emerged, ashen, she didn’t need to say anything.

“I’m going to need you to not go in there,” she said anyway.

“Oh I’m not!”

The good news in their predicament is they were leaving shortly, off to the airport to fly to Sucre. He needed to use the restroom before they left, and decided to use the one in the lobby. After all, he was not going in there.

The door he pulled on was locked.

“Well,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I can hold it until the airport.”