Adventures With Dear Miss Mermaid Child Of The Planet: New Title, Call Me Detective Defective

Argh Matey! I've pirated your driver's seat and made it my own booty. Of course I CLOSE my eyes when you take my picture, no pirate wants to be identified. You better take all five pounds of this puppy pirate seriously. I'm wearing an oversized pirate shirt to make me look BIG and BAD. Can I pierce my ear and dangle gold in it next?

One, two, three mysteries to solve. As if my life isn't full enough, now I have detective work to do.

What's dripping under the motorhome? We were pulled over for gas. I noticed something dripping near the gas tank. Oh dear me!

I stuck my finger in it and smelled it. It sure didn't smell like gasoline. It appeared to be plain old water. But it was dripping at a pretty good rate.

My water tank is located 8 feet or so away, so it's not the water tank. Plumbing? Well, the black water holding tank was nearby, but that would be dripping stinky toilet sewer, not clear water.

It could be the gray water tank, except it's empty, so nothing to drip from there.

The bathroom is nearby, could the plumbing be broken? But then the 12 volt water pump would be kicking in, to keep pumping water.

Very strange.

Mystery One.

A day or so later, I was cleaning and organizing. That is an ongoing chore in the motorhome. Living and traveling in it, means lots of organization. The cleaning is optional, but let's face it, I prefer to live a tad tidy and clean. Sure I can get behind on housework, what with so many other things occupying my time, but it's no fun to live, work, recuperate and play in a mess. Especially when it's a small compact space.

I decided the spare water jugs were taking up too much room. It's America, and I'm not in the desert and I already have water in the water tanks, water in the Brita Filter Pitcher, water in bottles in the fridge. Why on earth am I hauling around water in jugs too?

So I was evicting the water jugs. There were two in the bathroom, taking up too much room. Well, lo and behold, one jug was empty. It sported a tiny new hole.

Ah ha!

It had sprung a leak, and somehow found a way to eventually drain through the floor, near the gas tank fill. That explains the leaky water when I bought gas.

Phew.

Mystery ONE Solved.

Now on for Mystery Two.

Who pooped on my bathroom wall?

I woke up one morning, went to the bathroom and noticed poop stuck on my wall.

WHO pooped on my bathroom wall? It wasn't there when I went to bed!

Yuck.

Now it was just me and the puppy in the motorhome. That narrows down the suspects.

It seems to high for the puppy to poop on the wall. Besides, he doesn't poop inside.

I am potty trained, so I surely ddin't poop on the wall.

I looked inside the toilet to see if it had mysteriously thrown up poop in the night, but it seemed to be functioning normally.

So who pooped on my wall? Was a large unknown creature living with us and we didn't even notice? Did the creature poop on the wall? What kind of critter poops that much poop vertically? I looked around the motorhome for other evidence that a third living being was among us, but I found no evidence of an elephant or donkey or goat or anything that could poop that much poop, high on the wall.

I went back to bed. Deal with the poop on the wall later. As I drifted off to sleep, I convinced myself it was a dream.

Later came and went but the poop was still on the wall when I got up again.

I typically make up my bed sometime during the morning. The motorhome is a small place to live in full time. So keeping things tidy is kind of nice for living in a small space. But this morning, I had not got around to making up the bed yet, I was still mystified in my groggy mind by mystery two. Who pooped on the bathroom wall?

It's FUN to live in a small space. It does save on household chores. The less you own, the less you worry. Shopping is a breeze, not much to shop for, no where to put it. Now someone had put poop on my wall.

Later in the morning, I went to comb out my hair but there was goop in it. Dark goop. Much like the poop on the bathroom wall mystery. I washed the goop poop out of my hair while noticing the faint aroma of chocolate.

Chocolate in my hair? Very strange. Is my hair eating chocolate in my sleep? How odd is that?

Maybe this qualifies as mystery three!

Dark goop in my hair that smells like chocolate. So I decided to make up the bed, once I got my hair goop-free and styled.

I removed all the pillows, noticing that poop was on one of the pillow cases. My gosh. The THING pooped on my pillow case. Yuck!

On my bottom sheet was dark gooey poop. Oh my gosh! Poop in my bed? It was near the head of the bed. Now I tore the whole bed apart to change the sheets and pillow cases.
That's when I found IT.

A small empty wax chocolate wrapper.

I had recently bought 8 ounces of Baker's Dark Chocolate. For an emergency. It came in 8 sections, each one individually wrapped in wax paper.

One must always have emergecny chocolate on hand. Nothing worse than having a chocolate emergency and being out of chocolate, at a most inconvenient time.

The night before was coming back to me in little bits and pieces.

I had gone to bed early with pains, intent on a watching a funny movie, since the pain kept me from concentrating on work, might as well try to relax. So I piled up a few accoutrements on the night table. I had a cup of green tea, a little bottle of water, the phone, a saucer with crackers, some cheese, and a lone piece of chocolate wrapped in wax paper. When the tiny puppy dog hopped up in my bed to watch the movie with me, I took his harness off, adding that to the nightstand.

I drank the tea, ate the crackers and cheese, sharing some with the puppy, watched half the movie then went to sleep. I could watch the other half another night.

I never ate the chocolate. It was just there for an emergency. Just in case.

But I am known for my tossing and turning, during the night, plus padding myself with pillows, after realigning my mermaid body into whatever contorted position I am sleeping in next. My bed in the morning, looks like a tornado touched down. Everything is wadded up, pillows are everywhere, the cotton comforter is bunched up this way and that, it's not uncommon for the sheets to be pulled away from the mattress. Small wonder my five pound pooch sleeps in the far corner of the bed, or now lately, moves to his own little bed elsewhere.

My arm must have flailed out, the harness was in the floor, the water bottle was laying on it's side, (but the lid kept it from spilling), the saucer was flipped over and the chocolate must have tumbled into the bed.

I was cold that night plus I was super achy. I had turned on the electric mattress warmer. When the chocolate hit the bed, while I was sleeping, it ended up on my bottom sheet and cuddled up with the mattress warmer. It slowly melted. I apparently tossed and turned, dipping my long hair into the melted chocolate.

Mystery three solved.

This might be why I found dark goop that smelled like chocolate in my hair. It was chocolate and not poop.

Phew!

I soaked a paper towel in hot water, then rubbed it over the poop on my wall in the bathroom. Ah ha. It smelled like chocolate too. I cleaned up the mess.

Sometime during the night, I must have used the bathroom while I was still pretty sleepy and tired. My hair probably fell down over my face, so I tossed it over my shoulder while sitting on the throne.

The melted chocolate, must have been freshly stuck in my hair. When I absent-mindedly tossed my long hair over my shoulder, it thwacked the wall, leaving melted chocolate behind, which then solidified during the night. Dark chocolate and poop are afterall, similar in color.

Mystery two and three solved.

Whew! I felt better all around, but solving three mysteries in one day is time consuming. But it's nice to know, no one is pooping on my wall. Or in my bed. Now I don't put emergency chocolate on the nightstand anymore. I hide it in the nightstand drawer.