Yes, I HAVE Washed My Face in a Toilet

I’ve been asked, many times, whether I’ve ever washed my face in a toilet. This question isn’t as bizarre as you might think—my most recent book is called The Day I Washed My Face in the Toilet. Surely, I must have come up with that title after drinking too much wine, right?

Wrong. Sadly, I came up with that title—and a pretty big chunk of the plot-line of the book—the day I washed my face in a toilet.

Let me explain. In 2005, we were hit by a freakish late-winter storm. It snowed like crazy, then hailed, then rained, then the temperature plunged. Everything iced up. It was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen—miles and miles of glistening, snow-covered fields, trees coated with heavy layers of ice, long icicles hanging off the hydro wires…As I stood on our driveway admiring this incredible scene, I heard weird cracking sounds. It was the sound of ice-covered hydro poles toppling over and crashing to the road. Turns out the whole region was wiped out—falling trees took out hydro lines, and many of the older poles simply collapsed under the weight of the ice-coated wires, as ours had.

No hydro, no heat, no lights and no running water. I quickly changed the kids’ chores from now-impossible tasks, like laundry, to now-critical tasks, like:
*Collect water from the barn’s downspouts to use for flushing
*Collect snow from beside the house (where it was reasonably clean) to boil on the gas stove for pasta, veggies and tea
*Rummage through the fridge and freezer to see what needed to be eaten next before it could rot

Four days later, our home was still dark. I was cold, irritable—and grimy. I had to wash my face. But keeping that bloody house running, and taking care of a bunch of bored, restless kids, well, I was burned out. I was not going out into that miserable storm to collect rainwater or old snow just to wash my face. I snapped. I stomped into the bathroom, pulled the lid off the back of the toilet tank and peered in.

It was as disgusting as I had feared. The water had been sitting there four days, so it smelled stale and funky. And every chain and bobbly thing in there was covered with a thick layer of (and here, I’m using the scientific term) bleck.

I took a deep breath, grabbed a bar of soap and plunged it into the tank. Then, with my eyes and lips shut so tightly that even oxygen molecules couldn’t squeeze through, I splashed stale toilet tank water all over my face and neck and started to scrub. The conversation in my head went something like this:

“Oh, barf! Toilet water! This is disgusting! Stop it!”

“Don’t be stupid. It’s the same water that comes out of the taps. It’s just been sitting there four days.”

“Oh, barf! Toilet water! This is disgusting! Stop it!”

Well, you get the gist. While Wimpy Me and Logical Me had a screaming fight over whether or not this was the stupidest thing I’d ever do in my entire life (the verdict: probably not), I quickly scrubbed my face and neck with cold, stale, vaguely-slimy toilet water and then dried myself off with a flannel nightie (the towels hadn’t been washed since this whole fiasco started, and they were smelling too skunky to use).

It was one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever forced myself to do. Yet I felt amazing afterwards. I have never been so grateful to have a freshly-scrubbed face.

So, yes, I have washed my face in a toilet. Thank you for asking.

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