Mr. Blue Fingers

Isn't it odd that we put those little blue disks into our toilet tanks just so we have blue water in the bowl? They also disinfect the bowl, though it's not like you're going to drop something in the toilet and be all "hey, don't worry about it. I disinfect the bowl!" Nope, you're throwing it out regardless.

Like many folks I trust, I too use these little blue disks. They're easy to use and pretty inexpensive. All you have to do is rip open the seal and drop them into the tank. No biggee right? Well, the other day this rather simple task became much more involved than I would have liked.

The first part went well: rip open, drop in tank. Dandy. The disk floated down to the bottom of the tank, but landed on the flapper which covers the hole leading to the pipe which flows into the bowl. Shouldn't be a problem, I thought.

Later, I flushed the toilet and noticed that the water was still running. Instead of the disk flipping off the flapper, it got wedged under the flapper. Damnit.

So I reached in to free the disk by using the handle of a blue hairbrush I own. No worries right? Wrong. All I did was jam it further down the hole. Damnit again!!!

Now I was going to have to use my hand, which I did. Unfortunately, the disk had already started to decompose and was mushy. Enough so that my efforts to grab the disk were futile and all I ended up accomplishing was to push the disk further down the pipe and getting blue stained fingers. Ugh.