The Curious Case of the Pumice Stone in the Toilet

My husband and I have resided in three different states in the seven years we've been married. We moved to North Carolina the day we got back from our honeymoon. Two years to the week, we moved to Texas. We managed to stay in Texas for over four years before life shifted and we arrived in Arizona.

With each state move, we've had to learn a lot of different things. We've learned street names (including the Arizona ones that are all in Spanish-- hooray for high school Spanish class), which grocery stores to visit and which restaurants you should generally avoid unless you enjoy vomiting in the middle of the night.

I've also learned a thing or two about potties, showers and water.

When we moved to Arizona, I found a crazy thing happening: a ring around the toilet, even though I constantly scrubbed the thing!

Turns out, that reddish ring we see in the toilet (and also the red stains that can show up in the shower, as we often had in North Carolina) are caused by Hard Water. Hard Water is water that has excess minerals in it. Why it has excess, I have no idea.

I'm sure Suzanne "colonic queen" Summers would have a way to remove them. 

I tried EVERYTHING to get rid of these stains: scrubbing, Borax, pouring bleach into the toilet (yes, I know. I KNOW) and even praying to the Sweet Baby Jesus to please make my toilet pretty.

Nothing worked.

Then, I went to my friend, the Internet...and it told me all about hard water stains and how you have to use a bit of elbow grease...and a pumice stone. For those of you who aren't down with the girlie things, pumice stones are used to rub callouses off your stanky feet.

They're also used to rub stains out of the crapper.

So, one evening, after I finished my dinner, I went to the bathroom, yellow rubber gloves and pumice stone in tow. (Notice I said after I finished my dinner. Everyone else was still eating. My daughter always asks why I eat so fast and, dear child, it is because I don't spend half the meal walking around, filling up glasses full of ice and complaining that my brother looked at me the wrong way.)

I got to business. I scrubbed. I scrubbed even harder. I felt my elbow go completely out from scrubbing. But, still, I soldiered on.

At the end, I had a completely beautiful toilet once again. Never shall I ever be slave to a red ring around the toilet! Never shall I try to pour bleach into the bowl!

So I rinsed both the pumice stone and gloves off and placed them in the drying rack in the sink. It seemed like a good place to me. They needed to dry; it was a drying rack.

Oh, but no. My husband. He freaks out. All of a sudden he's all "I can't believe you put a pumice stone in my dish drainer when it has been in the toilet."

I think I mumbled something under my breath that those who do not scrub the toilet do not get to whine, but I don't think he could hear me. I just kept hearing squeals and shrieks and "so nasty" as he scrubbed my sink.

The next morning, my son finds said pumice stone in the garage. I take it from him and place it in the laundry room, for the next time I have to use it to clean a toilet.

And, husband, please do not worry. I shall not use the dish drainer as a place to dry it.

I shall use your pillow.