Truthseeker420
Gold Member
It was out of character that I noticed that the SodaStream bottles were getting a little gross, and that I set off to disinfect them, according to manufacturers instructions, with water and bleach. I have never been the tidy one in the house. Mike is the one who knows where everything is, who fluffs the pillows and the cushions, who complains about my piles, who notices the dirt. But this time it was me. I lined six SodaStream bottles up in the mudroom sink, filled them up about a quarter of the way with bleach, the rest with warm water. I put the caps on the bottles, and let them soak overnight. Or maybe I left them in the sink for a day or two. I choose not to remember.
I never noticed that the bottles were gone from the sink. I never gave them a second thought. But Mike saw filled water bottles with caps on them out of place in the mudroom when they belonged in the refrigerator, and he did his thing. It did not cross his mind that I would have initiated a cleaning project.
The call came on my cell phone: Mom, I think I drank bleach! Eddie croaked, his throat parched. As soon as he said it, I knew what happened. He had come home from school, made a B-line for the fridge and chugged the bleach water right from the bottle. Sure it smelled a little funny, but the smell didnt register until he had gulped about half a bottle (once again proving the teenage brain is not fully developed).
Poison control, the ambulance, the emergency room. See what can happen when you let your family members drink from the bottle? It is not a lot of fun to be told by an EMT (incorrectly), Lady, your son could die, and have to explain that to your spouse on the cell as you are rushing to the closest hospital. Turns out, you dont really hurt yourself by drinking a little bleach water, but I dont advise itit may cause a severe aversion to laundry.
The hospital interviewed my son privately to ask if his parents had forced him to drink bleach, if he had drunk bleach on purpose (to get away from his parents), or to find out if there was any deeper meaning to his drinking bleach. When they realized the kid was just about the happiest kid on the planet and his parents were just stupid, they let us all go home.
I blame my husband for the incident, and he blames me, but we are able to do so with a smile, because everything turned out ok. Our son survived and thrived, graduated college, eventually moved out of the house and is happily managing on his own (though laundry is not his forte).
We know that no no one was really at fault here, that sometimes a series of horrible miscommunications ends up in a disaster. But I often think about the blame game, and whether Mike and I could ever have gotten over this incident if things had not turned out so well. We were just plain old lucky I didnt clean the bottles with Drano.
I Almost My Poisoned My Kid
I was looking at reviews and saw this story.