I was already at the the bathroom sink, washing my hands, when the toilet I'd just flushed made a gulping noise and seemingly reversed its engines.  I stood, watching in horror, as brown water rapidly approached the rim of the toilet bowl.

I was the only person awake.

Or the only person who admitted to being awake.

Thankfully, the water level stopped rising a couple of inches from the edge of the bowl.  I got the plunger out of the bathroom closet and pumped it up and down a couple of times.  Belching noises emanated from the bowl, and some of the water went down.  Figuring the problem was solved, I flushed again.  This time, the bowl came perilously close to overflowing - so close that the plunger, itself, would have displaced enough water to send it over the rim.

This was bad.  

What to do?

Long story short, I had to bail out the toilet with a styrofoam cup.  The only container suitable as a receptacle for what I was bailing out of the bowl was my garden picking bucket.  (It is now soaking in bleach.)   And then what does one do with a bucket full of nasty toilet water?  I made three trips to the woods to dump the foul stuff.  Finally, with the toilet bowl almost empty, I retrieved the serious plunger - the one that works like a bicycle pump - from another bathroom and managed to unclog the toilet.

About two minutes after I'd cleaned the toilet, sanitized the plungers and myself, and retreated to my chair on the porch, The Husband came out to the porch with his coffee.  I could tell that he was dying to comment or question what had happened, but he knew that if he said anything, I'd know he was awake throughout the whole process.

I'd known he was awake, anyway.