I'm crossing that unladylike line, as daintily as I can.
When I wrote "G is for Garlic," I really did think it would be funny to find a Pinterest pin about how to get rid of garlic breath, so I set to work searching for one. It turned out "H" was NOT going to be for halitosis after all, as I didn't find a cure beyond brushing your teeth and tongue and eating parsley. I did, however, find this little gem:
Found on crunchybetty.com
I'll give you a hint: it's not about freshening your breath.
I'll give you ANOTHER hint: that isn't a counter top or sink upon which that little bottle sets.
This was intriguing, as I remembered a friend once mentioning visiting someone who had a bottle of something called Poo Pourri that was kept in the bathroom for *ahem* certain types of visits. (Have you ever read the book "Cheaper By The Dozen"? If you haven't, you should, because it's a terrific book, and in it, the father, an efficiency expert used his methods not only to help factories and businesses be more efficient, but he also used it in his home, where he had twelve children. He referred to the aforementioned visits as "Unavoidable Delay.")
According to the site I pinned, dripping a few drops of essential oils into the toilet BEFORE the act of Unavoidable Delay will nearly eliminate any "odorous evidence" that you've, well, you know.
And it can be any scent of essential oil that you choose, as long as it is a strong one, such as peppermint (added bonus: you won't have ants in your toilet), wintergreen, lemon. I went with the eucalyptus, trusting Crunchy Betty implicitly on this, because she said it had the strongest scent and was cheaper than the others (cheaper than peppermint, that's for sure, ant bastards).
Taking a giant leap of faith, when I was in the natural foods store last week to get peppermint essential oil for ant eradication, I also picked up a bottle of eucalyptus oil, because if it actually worked, this was going to be a HUGE Pinterest win. Of course, you know that when I got home with the peppermint oil, I no longer only had a couple of ants on a reconnaissance mission; I had a small army of them, so I got the bottle of peppermint oil out of my purse and went to work smashing ants.
Shortly after that, I had to take my daughter to volleyball practice in a nearby town a half hour drive away. I pulled up to the gym to drop my daughter off and I was hit with, well, a great and urgent need to visit a restroom. Being utterly ladylike about such matters, what I really wanted to do was drive back home for home field advantage. As that was neither practical (it was a huge waste of fuel to do so - I was going to say waste of gas, but that just sounded wrong, given my situation at the time) nor possible (I was pretty sure I wouldn't make it home before certain organ failure and wasn't convinced I could even make it to a restroom nearby), I had a little mind-over-matter talk with myself, drove a mile or two to a McDonalds and made a bee-line to the restroom.
I was the only one in there, but that didn't make me feel any better about the indelicate situation I found myself, even though I knew I had no other options (not pleasant ones, anyway).
Light bulb moment: the bottle of eucalyptus essential oil was still in my purse from when I purchased it. Following the directions from Crunchy Betty, I unscrewed the cap, let a couple drops of oil fall into the toilet, and hoped for the best.
Without any need of further details, I am here to tell you IT WORKED! IT WORKED! No one walking into the bathroom at that moment would catch a whiff of anything more than the clean smell of eucalyptus.
On the chance it was a fluke, I tried it out on another family member who is less inhibited than I about Unavoidable Delay, and IT WORKED AGAIN!
It really IS a miracle oil!
Next step is the training of the less inhibited in our household to use the product.
Pinterest win!
