Toilet Trauma

I am spearheading a campaign to ban, destroy, and erase the automatic flushing toilets found in many public restrooms from the surface of the earth.  Okay, maybe this is a bit exaggerated, but I would gladly personally incinerate every one of them.  From Shanghai to Boise, I would make the trip with a smile.  Why, you might ask?  Because these wonders of modern technology have caused my beautiful daughter to morph from a child who had been solidly potty-trained for three years into one who cringes at the sight of unfamiliar toilets.
         It all started with a decision, the essence of which I still stand behind, to let my sister take my daughter to Wal-Mart.  It was a brand-new Super Wal-Mart, no less.  Thus, my sister did not know—because as a family we spend little time reading the incidental manufacturer information posted on toilets—that disaster was about to strike.  Sam hoisted Kendall atop the shiny example of what a man with a wrench, some porcelain, and a dream can create and allowed nature to take its course.  Kendall finished up and as she reached for the toiled paper, she apparently moved from in front of the sensor.  From the second-hand account I received from both parties in the bathroom, the toilet seems to have flushed with a sound akin to a rocket departing Kennedy Space Center, and with enough pressure to suck the entire room into an alternate universe.  This, ladies, was the beginning of a less that beautiful, full-blown phobia.
         For a long time, in order to get Kendall to use the restroom in public, I had to perch behind her tiny bottom on the seat, using my entire body to block the sensor.  I felt like a bodyguard for a mafia don, making sure that no threat can come from behind.  This really wouldn’t have bothered me, except her fear does not merely encompass new toilets that have a good chance of flushing automatically, but also really old toilets which have at best a 25% chance of flushing with human aid.  Her private pre-school was housed in a historical mansion, the plumbing of which was original to the structure and dated to the early twentieth century.  She was afraid to sit on the toilets there!  This, dear readers, was a problem.
         My husband and I came up with the brilliant idea of letting Kendall try to flush things much smaller than herself down the toilet, hoping to get to the root of the problem, i.e. the fear of going down the potty.  I have thus far allowed her to try to flush my hand, foot, favorite coffee cup, and a dog-eared, but much beloved book down the toilet.  It seems to be working and my toilet is cleaner than it’s ever been (I might as well scrub while my hand is in there!)
         We’re getting through it now, and we’ve moved together into a place where she only requires a single hand on the sensor (or in the absence of a sensor, on the toilet handle.)  I’m sure one day I’ll look back on this with humor and a touch of longing for days gone by.  However, right now, I just hope for the time when I no longer curse the day that Wal-Mart got a call that I can only imagine went something like this, “Hello, Mr. Walton!  Have I got a product for you!”