Oh the Horror!!

Something happened to me last night that I don’t wish on anyone except my worst enemy. Kidding, I don’t wish it on anyone.

I had just finished brushing my teeth and was extremely thirsty. I glanced down and saw my water bottle standing there so I grabbed it, popped it open and before I took a drink, I politely mentioned to Nat that she shouldn’t leave my water bottle in the bathroom, on the floor of all places. She looked up at me and said, “You told me to get you that” as I took a big swig of it. She screamed “Chris!! What are you doing?!!” She at first thought I was joking and pretending to drink the clear liquid that was in the bottle, not so!

I had completely forgotten that I had put “THE MOST POWERFUL CLEANING AGENT I HAVE EVER SEEN” into my old water bottle after I had picked it up at a bulk cleaning supplies store. Too late! I had the stuff in my mouth and it took me a split second to know that something was wrong with my water. Firstly by the shocked and horror-struck look on my dear wife’s face, and second, the extremely weird tasting water that was in my water bottle. In the beginning it tasted like condensed sea water but a second later started burning horribly at the inside of my mouth. It felt like my mouth was on fire and continued to feel so as I washed it out in the bathroom sink. The stuff was nauseating and I could feel it burning under my tongue and the inside of my cheeks and lips.

After about five minutes of washing my mouth out I thought it would be ok to have a look at the damage. Small pieces of skin were coming off of the inside of my cheeks and tongue and all my taste buds on the first half of my tongue were oozing blood. It was pretty freaky! All I could do was laugh at the stupidity of the situation and wince in pain as I tried to talk to Nat and tell her I was ok. She felt so bad for having left the bottle there, but she shouldn’t have felt bad, cuz I should have known better! I had after all asked her to get it for me!

When I first bought the stuff, I had the notion (which was apparently God-sent) to not leave the extremely caustic cleaning agent in my old water bottle and place it in a properly labeled bottle. But I shrugged it off thinking to myself, “who would ever think that this liquid was water? It obviously doesn’t have the same consistency as water and it tastes terrible!” So I just left it there and waited for a terrible accident to take place. I was so relieved when I later thought about the situation and how at night my kids normally get up and drink water from my “real” water bottle and how if I would not have been struck with the desire to drink right then, I would have left the bottle there and they would have gotten a hold of it. I painfully praised the Lord that He protected my kids from a disaster like that and how He almost always keeps us safe from our own stupidity.

Nat was happy that I saw the bright side in the situation and agreed that we should be more on top of things like that. I have since put away all dangerous cleaning agents including “THE MOST POWERFUL CLEANING AGENT I HAVE EVER SEEN”. Praise God for his protection and that none of the stuff actually went down my throat! Whew!

PS. This cleaning agent is almost pure lye which accounts for its salty flavor and tarty zing at the end. I could have sworn that my teeth looked whiter after I rinsed my mouth out. They definitely felt clean, heh heh!

One more thing: Doesn’t this sound like something that should have happened to my brother in law Jason Paone as accident-prone as he is? I miss you man! Big hug!