Solo Pod

The narrator tells a story about going to a Chinese restaurant with her mom as a child. Despite the restaurant having a low health department grade, it was still one of the best in their town. The narrator enjoyed the food, especially the jello, pudding, and ice cream. During the visit, the narrator's mom had to use the bathroom and brought the narrator along. In the bathroom, the narrator became curious about a toilet brush and decided to lick it, much to her mom's horror. Surprisingly, the narrator did not get sick and actually developed a strong immune system. The narrator's mom considers it a blessing and still tells the story today. The Chinese restaurant eventually closed down, possibly due to its low health department grade. The narrator asks the viewers if this was a normal childhood experience. Hello, and welcome to Emma's Antidote. If you're just now tuning in, this is the show where we explore the wacky stories of my childhood and you, the viewers, decide, was this a normal childhood experience or not? Today's episode, Changhua, a rural town's Chinese restaurant. Nice, sunny day in the town of Pulaski, Virginia, and my mom decided, you know what would be the perfect thing for me to do with my three-year-old daughter? Let's take her to a local Chinese restaurant, who actually had a sign in the window with their health department grade of C. This being said, this was still one of the best restaurants in Pulaski. We didn't have that much. We were a rural town in southwest Virginia, so we kind of ate what we had, but it was one of my mom's favorite restaurants. I really liked the food there as a child because they had jello, and they had pudding, and they even had an ice cream machine, which was, like, the best thing ever for me as a kid. That being said, me and my mom didn't go out a lot by ourselves together, but this day, she had a teacher work day, so my dad was at work. She kept me out of daycare so we could have a little, like, mommy-daughter day, and I was really excited. So I sat there and ate my chicken nuggets with her and then got my giant swirl of vanilla ice cream, and I was really happy. But towards the end of the meal, my mom was like, oh, I have to go to the bathroom, and obviously, as a three-year-old, I couldn't just sit there by myself, so she took me to the bathroom with her. This bathroom was a really big one-seater bathroom. You know, I was a little bit of a rambunctious kid, but not, like, in the way that you would expect, like, running around and stuff. I was a very, very curious kid, so I would all the time go around places and grab things, and I'd be like, mom, what is this, or what does this do, or how does this work? Unfortunately, that day, my sights were on some of the bathroom tools in the bathroom. And like I said before, this was a pretty large bathroom, so my mother, when she went over to the toilet, was actually, like, six to ten feet away from me on the other side of the wall. And I started, you know, doing my standard look around as a toddler of, is there anything shiny? Is there anything pretty? Is there anything that catches my attention? And since it was a standard bathroom, blue walls, cinder block, I was like, man, where is all the fun stuff? Unfortunately, my eyes locked on a toilet brush in the corner of the room. My mom saw me start to walk over to it, and I was absolutely transfixed by this plain white toilet brush in a toilet brush holder. And I was like, what's this, mommy? And she was like, don't mess with that. And I was like, oh, perfect, something to mess with. So I grabbed the toilet brush out of the toilet brush holder, and I was looking at it, and my mom was like, put that down. And she couldn't get up, because she was using the bathroom. So I was like, this is my opportunity to do all of the things that I wish I had done. So I looked at it, and I was like, you know what this looks like? This looks a lot like a lollipop. So I was like, oh, my gosh, I wonder if it'll taste like one, too. And so I gave this toilet brush at my hometown health department-rated C Chinese restaurant a lick. And my mother, every time she recounts this story, is like, oh, my God, I can't believe that you did that. And one, never got sick. Two, you never even was like, oh, that's gross or doesn't taste good. You just put it back like nothing had happened. And I was over there like, oh, my God, what am I going to do? My baby is going to get food poisoning. She's going to have some kind of weird disease. But after I got over that initial hump of a week of not getting sick, my mom actually viewed it kind of as a blessing, because I've had a great immune system ever since. And she accounts it not to the vaccines that I've gotten or public school or anything like that. She accounts it to the toilet brush that I licked at our Chinese restaurant at home. And she still tells the story today. And nobody can believe it. And I'm not sure why. Like, I just thought kids did stuff like that, but apparently they don't. But, yeah, ever since then, I've had a great immune system. I've actually gone on to work in public health. So, you know, I think that that toilet brush actually gave me a purpose and a better life. I don't think too many people can say that. Unfortunately, the Chinese restaurant in my town did shortly shut down after that. I don't think it was doing very well because of, you know, the health department grade. I don't think they ever brought that up. Okay, so I hope you enjoyed the story today. And be sure to, in the comments, tell me, is this a normal childhood experience or not? And thanks for watching. Have a nice day.