We’ve all heard the expression “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” before. But one mom’s viral tale of woe is yet again proving there’s truth behind that old adage, after all — much to the Internet’s amusement.
You see, it all began one day last fall, when Ashford Evans — a writer, mother of three, and the voice behind the blog Biscuits and Crazy — returned from a business trip to find something a little … off in her home. As she later explained on her blog:
“After a long delayed flight and subsequent 2 hour drive from the airport … [I came home to] sweet sweet silence and an empty house.”
Three kids and silence? An empty house? Yeah, that IS off. But trust me when I say this is actually the least absurd part of Evans story. What laid waiting for her in the bathroom would definitely take the “cake”:
“When I entered the bathroom I was greeted by a sweet citrus smell,” Evans wrote. “The entire bathroom seemed to have been scrubbed just before my arrival. I looked around astonished that my husband would think to clean the house just before my arrival (God knows how much I hate returning to a messy house) and that’s when I saw it. One of the children’s cereal bowls sitting on the shelf with what seemed to be an old bar of soap sitting in it.”
But there was just one problem — or rather, one curiosity that rang a small alarm bell in the back of her mind: “I didn’t remember buying it,” wrote Evans.
Uh oh.
Still, she admits it “smelled delicious,” which made her initially shrug off any concern she might have for the surprise “gift” that had mysteriously been left behind for her by her three kids — whom she refers to on her blog as Eeny, Meeny, and Miny.
“The smell of fresh grapefruit in a perfectly silent house is just short of heaven I believe,” she continued. ” … [and] throughout the night I returned several times to inhale its tropical scent … I never bothered to wash my hands after fondling it because it was, after all, just soap.”
But by morning, Evans would regret this decision:
“The next morning … Eeny emerged from the guest bathroom pressing the bar to her lips and breathing deeply saying “This is my favorite. I love the way this smells.”
“‘I know!’ I wholeheartedly agreed. “What IS that? Where did you guys get that?’ I asked.”
“‘Meeny found it in the boys bathroom at Tae Kwon Do and brought it home,’ she happily replied.”
“And that’s when it hit me. It wasn’t some upscale boutique $15 soap I had been caressing for the last 12 hours. It was a urinal cake.”
Yup. You read that right: Evans had been fondling (and sniffing … and enjoying) a urinal cake — a PUBLIC urinal cake — all evening.
Of course, it isn’t just Eeny, Meeny, and Miny’s actions that make Evans’ story so damn disgusting — and, well, hilarious — it’s the way Evans builds her story up. It is the way in which she handles this “revelation:”
“With this realization I screamed and jerked it from her [Eeny’s] hands flinging it into the trashcan.
“‘NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!’ she cried bursting into tears. ‘It’s my FAVORITE!!!!!’
“‘WASH YOUR HANDS, YOUR FACE, OH GOD WASH EVERYTHING!!!!!!” I screamed back.’
“Everything went black.”
And it remained “black” for quite some time. In fact, in an interview with Babble, Evans explains that hindsight hasn’t made this moment any clearer:
“When I first realized it was a urinal cake I didn’t actually pass out but honestly everything [was] awfully blurry with millions of thought running through my head.”
However, hindsight has made this moment hilarious:
“After the initial shock, I realized how freaking hilarious it was and how this is just the sort of thing I should put on my blog. So I made the obvious choice to fish it back out of the trashcan so that I could get photo evidence for the post. I immediately wrote a status post quickly reviewing what happened … [and then] I call[ed] my husband. [But] when he answered the phone he was making gagging sounds. I asked him what was wrong and he said ‘I just saw your Facebook post. I had no idea what that thing was. I thought it was a piece of dried fruit: I almost tasted it. WHAT IF I HAD TASTED IT?'”
OMG. Gross!
The good news is, this story has a happy-ish ending: Not only does the Evans family have one hell of a tale to tell (that her kids will never, ever live down), but Ashford and her husband also used the opportunity to have a teachable moment with their kids — “about not bringing things home and not touching things in public restrooms, or any restroom for that matter.”
And what is life without important life lessons, like don’t touch — or steal — urinal cakes and bring them home to Mom?