PHANTOMS This morning I found myself in the bathroom at work being stared at blankly by two grimey plumbers. I'd asked Dorothy to call them because the toilet was backed up—again. When they'd arrived and the toilet worked, Dorothy brought them into my office for an explaination. We all 3 walked into the small bathroom together. "Now, what was wrong with this toilet when you called us?" one asked. "Well... I tried plunging it out... and... " "What was wrong with it, though?" the second added. "It had... a bunch of, stuff, in it." I used a sort of hand motion to help describe it. "Toilet paper and stuff." They looked at each other. "Poop. You can say it, crap, turds, shit." "Okay. It had poop and paper it in and it wouldn't flush. Or plunge." They both looked at me, perplexed. These two were priests trying to extract a confession. They needed to know why it worked after they'd driven here all the way from Lawndale for an "emergency." They flushed it three times in a row to show me. They'd just installed this deluxe model the previous day. Church is the brand. And the logo is emblazened on the inside bottom of the seat so you can read it as you desecrate it. "Doesn't make any sense," said one. "This is a $300 toilet. We put it in especially for the problems you guys have here." He flushes it again. Perfect. Clean. I shrug and shimmey out of the room. —Jenkins, 1/23/01