The Urinal of Doom

So I took Little Smoot and her friend to a Chinese buffet yesterday. I was thinking my usual Chinese thoughts (“Does duck sauce really come from an actual duck?” “What makes sticky rice sticky?” “Which part of the duck?”) when nature called.

I answered the call and took care of business. I flushed the urinal, turned around and began putting everything back where it belongs, when I couldn’t help but notice that my feet were getting wet.

Turns out, the urinal was spewing out water to the point where it looked like Niagara Urinal. I half expected to see the Tidy Bowl Man exiting it via a little barrel. I wasn’t quite sure what to do about the situation, so I used the only bit of plumbing knowledge I’ve ever found to be helpful: I waded through the stream and jiggled the handle. It did no good.

I am quite disappointed in myself for not having the presence of mind to take a picture of it with my cell phone camera.

So anyway, I squished my way out of the restroom and sought to alert one of the workers about the problem. The first person I saw was the Mongolian chef. Turns out he barely spoke any English, and I definitely don’t speak Mongolian, so that conversation went nowhere. I told him “The urinal is overflowing!” And he just gave me that vacant look. I really didn’t want to resort to imitating sign language to explain the problem.

I eventually notified another of the workers, but he didn’t really seem to grasp the urgency of the situation. I stuffed a few more crab rangoon things into my mouth, paid, and got the heck out of there before the restaurant turned into a giant Chinese aquarium.

I’ve been nervously watching the news to see if the situation got worse. I can’t help but picture the restaurant being under several feet of water, with a bunch of ducks floating around on top.