Young Plucky Duck was currently in the process of potty training. At least, that's what his parents thought given that they had left him alone in the bathroom after teaching him about the potty. In reality, all Plucky knew or cared about was flushing the potty, because when he did so he triggered a process that made the water within it disappear. The little one had then seen fit to see what else he could flush down the potty. Starting with toilet paper, he had flushed the following objects: His diaper (his father having specifically told Plucky to get rid of it), his stuffed teddy bear named Nana, a rubber ducky, and a toy boat. His attempts to flush down a cat, however, had backfired, sending the little duck into the bowl.

Unharmed but rather wet, the bare bottomed Plucky climbed out of the bowl and shook himself dry as he plopped onto the bathroom floor. What should he flush next?

"Are you done yet, Plucky?" His mother called from downstairs, unaware of what her son was up to.

Young Plucky called back. "I wanna flush the potty!"

"Okay. Just be quick about it." Plucky's father said.

So the toddler duck ran to the potty, ready to give it one last flush. "Water go down the hole!" He happily exclaimed as he pressed down the lever, flushing the potty anew. But then, suddenly, something went wrong! The potty made a strange noise, almost like a gurgle. The water within the bowl suddenly started to rise! It rose higher and higher, until it had risen above the bowl and spilled out onto the tiled floor of the bathroom. All Plucky could think to do was jiggle the handle, hoping that somehow that might fix whatever was wrong. It accomplished nothing.

"Is everything okay in there?" Plucky's mom called again.

Little Plucky gulped, poking his head out from the bathroom as he replied. "Wanna flush it again!" He hoped that would give him enough time to figure out how to fix the problem he was currently having with the potty.

But Plucky's dad hollered back. "No, you've flushed enough, son!"

And then the little one could hear his mother saying to his father. "He's been in there a long time. We should probably check on him." Seconds later, it was possible to hear the sound of their approaching footsteps.

Plucky panicked, retreating back into the bathroom and slamming the door shut behind him! He hoped that would at least keep his parents from finding out what was going on! "I wanna flush it again!" He growled and then turned his attention to the potty, all the while sucking on his thumb as he tried to think of how he would get out of this unfortunate situation he now found himself in.

From the other side of the door, Plucky's mother and father were trying unsuccessfully to get it open. They jiggled the handle, but Plucky had blocked off the door, preventing them from opening it. As a result, the parents pounded on the bathroom door, demanding to be let in! "Plucky, open this door!" His dad demanded in a furious tone of voice!

"Do what your father says, Plucky," Plucky's mom tried to encourage in a gentler, kinder tone of voice. "Come on."

But the little duck didn't acknowledge either of his parents, he was still focused on trying to fix whatever was wrong with the potty.


Suddenly, as Plucky pondered his predicament and how to get out of it, his eyes noticed something! Something that was floating in the waters within the potty, something he had flushed earlier. Despite the soaking wet tiles underneath his feet, he ran to the potty to get a closer look at what had just popped up! It was that toy boat from the bathtub! Jumping into the bowl, the little duck grabbed the toy boat and happily exclaimed! "Toot Toot came back!" Then he tossed it out of the potty and onto the floor.

The potty was still overflowing, though. Fortunately, Plucky dove down and retrieved another object that had resurfaced: The rubber ducky. "Ducky came back!" He exclaimed with joy, tossing it out to join the toy boat.

Next to be retrieved from the potty was a soaking wet teddy bear, a teddy bear Plucky hadn't thought twice about flushing down the potty before, but was still overjoyed to see it return all the same. "Nana came back!" He happily shouted, and it too was tossed out onto the floor.

But there was still one last object in the potty that Plucky had flushed and had now returned. It was much heavier than the others, and required Plucky to dive down a ways, submerging himself in the bowl to the point where his bare bottom was sticking up in the air. He tugged, and tugged, and tugged some more as he tried to pull out the object he had seen. At last, his hard work was rewarded as he fished out a swelled up diaper. "Diaper came back!" He cheered, tossing it out of the potty without a second thought.

As soon as the diaper was removed from the potty, it happened! The potty made another gurgling sound, and then suddenly all the water within the bowl started to retreat! As it did so, a powerful suction took hold of the one other thing within the bowl: Plucky himself. The little one was spun all about, tossed one way and then another within the bowl. He couldn't see straight! "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" He cried over and over again as his vision blurred! The dizzying, disorienting motion prevented him from thinking. Otherwise, he probably would've realized what was happening and quickly jumped out of the bowl!

Alas, it was too late for the nearly three year old duck now! The potty was flushing again, and this time Plucky Duck was the object that was going to go down the hole! Down, down, down he went, the light of the bathroom rapidly receding behind him! All of a sudden, everything went dark, and Plucky disappeared from sight!


By the time the flush cycle had finished, Plucky's mother and father had finally managed to force their way into the bathroom as they got the door opened. The sight that greeted their eyes filled them with shock and horror!

"Oh noooooooo!" The parents cried in dismay as they took in their surroundings. The bathroom was completely flooded, full of toilet water. And several objects lay upon the floor, all of them clearly having been the cause of the blockage that had only now cleared up.

"And I just redecorated!" Plucky's mom wailed.

"Plucky, where are you?!" Plucky's dad sharply and sternly scolded, expecting to see his son emerge at any second. It was clear to both parents who had caused this mess, and who was going to be punished for it.

But Plucky was nowhere to be seen. Seconds went by, and there wasn't a single sound from him. It was as if the almost three year old duck had disappeared into thin air. Both parents knew otherwise, they knew their son had to be somewhere in the bathroom. After all, they had heard him talking to himself on the other side of the bathroom door while they had been trying to get it opened.

So where was Plucky now? He hadn't run past either of his parents in an attempt to avoid being caught. He had to be in the bathroom. So why wasn't he showing up? Where had he gone? All the objects that lay on the floor in front of the toilet told better than words what had happened: Plucky had flushed his diaper, his stuffed teddy bear, a rubber duck, and a toy boat down the toilet. Naturally, no toilet could handle so many things going down the drain that weren't supposed to go down it. It had clogged and overflowed. And only when the objects had been removed had the blockage been cleared.

Yet there was still no sign of Plucky. He was nowhere in sight. Both parents found that odd.

"Plucky?!" Plucky's father called again, hoping for a reply. "Plucky, come out from… wherever it is you are! We know what you did, son! There's no use trying to hide from us!"

"Come on, Plucky," Plucky's mother demanded while stomping her feet down. "This isn't funny! Look at the mess you've caused! Come out and talk to us right now!"

Silence was the only answer. Both parents started to grow worried. Where had Plucky gone? Where was he?

"Plucky, if you don't come out and talk to us right now, you're going to be grounded for a whole year! I mean it!" Plucky's father yelled. He was certain that would be enough to overcome any urge his toddler son had to hide. Yet seconds just continued to tick by without any sign of the toddler, and no sort of reply from him.

Then, suddenly, an awful thought struck the parents! They had heard a lot of noises while they had been trying to force the bathroom door open. And just before they'd successfully entered the bathroom they'd thought they'd heard the toilet flushing once again, while Plucky had been uttering some sort of cry, almost like he was in danger.

Now, suddenly, their son's mysterious disappearance seemed to have only one logical explanation! The parents looked at the toilet as if they hoped and expected it to prove them wrong, for their son to pop right up in the toilet bowl. That wasn't what happened. The toilet was empty, nothing was in it. And it didn't seem like anything was blocking the drain or the pipes connected to it, it wasn't overflowing anymore.

There was no denying it. Somehow, someway, Plucky had accidentally been flushed down the toilet (probably as a result of him trying to fix the blockage he'd caused.)!

Plucky's mother ran to the toilet, jiggling the handle in the desperate hope that it might somehow cause the porcelain contraption to spit her son back up. Of course it didn't work. Plucky was gone, he wasn't stuck in the pipes anywhere. He'd gone down the drain all the way.

"Plucky?! Plucky! Plucky, can you hear us?! Say something!" Plucky's father yelled as he stuck his head into the toilet bowl. He peered down towards the drain, only to receive no reply of any sort: No garbled cry, no screams or pleas for help, nothing.

"Oh, what were we thinking letting him use the potty all by himself?!" Plucky's mom sobbed with grief as the reality of the situation slowly sank in for her and her husband. "If only we'd been a few seconds earlier, we could've saved him from going down the drain. But we're too late, our only child has been flushed away!"

"There's only one thing we can do now, honey," Plucky's dad replied as he lifted his head back up. "We've got to save Plucky! And from now on, we're going to have to supervise his potty time, at least until he's old enough to know how to do it right."


For Plucky, the little duck had experienced a journey he would've given anything not to have experienced. It had happened so fast he'd had no time to react, no time to think about what to do! In a matter of seconds after fishing out his diaper, the potty had flushed anew with him trapped within the pull of its fierce flush cycle! It had spun him around in a dizzying, disorienting whirlpool, then swiftly sucked him down the hole as everything went dark!

The hole led to things that were just as dark, and felt cold to the touch. The water within them had dragged the toddler along as a helpless passenger, preventing him from swimming back up through the hole that quickly receded from view. On and on he went, tossed one way and then another at a second's notice as the water twisted and turned, following some invisible path.

Then, all of a sudden, there was a light up ahead! Before Plucky could react, he was swept towards the light as it flooded his vision! And with an audible plop, the toddler fell. He soon landed face first in water that was murky and very foul smelling: Like a dirty diaper but much, much worse. "Ew!" He gagged as he lifted his head up, feeling the muck brush against his already soaking wet body.

Apparently, this is where everything that went down the hole in the potty ended up: In this damp, dark, musty, mucky place. At least that explained to Plucky why a potty didn't smell as bad as a diaper after you used it. And apparently, grown-ups thought that was an acceptable alternative: Letting… whoever was in charge of this place deal with it all. But why hadn't they just told him that from the beginning? Why hadn't they told him that the flush could take you as well if you weren't careful? He most certainly wouldn't have flushed all those things down the potty if he'd known this is where they were supposed to end up. And he wouldn't have removed his diaper from the bowl without first making sure he was free of the pull of the flush cycle.

The little duck frowned, knowing he was probably going to have to take a bath if he ever found a way to get out of this disgusting place. Baths were something he absolutely hated. Now the potty didn't seem so fun, now the potty didn't seem like something worth using instead of a diaper. Diapers didn't cause floods, diapers didn't drag you to foul smelling places like this, diapers didn't make it so you'd have to take a bath afterwards. Why did grown-ups ever think that getting out of diapers was a good idea? It wasn't. And Plucky vowed that if he was able to escape from wherever he currently was, he was going to make this belief known to both his parents.

Suddenly, as the still somewhat disoriented toddler thought and contemplated his situation, trying to think of how he might go about getting out of here, he heard a sound coming from above. It sounded like something was being moved, by who or by what he didn't know. What he did know was that suddenly the darkness was broken up, as light of some kind streamed down from above. Being rather curious, Plucky waddled his way towards it, his feet splashing through the murky water with every step he took.

As the nearly three year old duck drew closer to where the light was coming from, he swore he could hear voices calling out. And they were familiar voices at that:

"Plucky?! Plucky, are you down there?! Please, say something if you are!" Plucky's mom frantically and desperately pleaded.

"Come on, son!" Plucky's father encouraged in a tone of voice far more panic stricken than you'd normally hear from him. "We've got to get you out of those sewers! It's not safe for you down there!"

"Mommy! Daddy!" Plucky happily exclaimed as he looked up through the opening that the light was coming from! Never was he gladder to see his parents than he was right now! He didn't even care what they would do to him, he was just glad to see them! After all, he was certain they would know how to get him out of this disgusting place. They would know how to take him back to where he belonged, where he'd be safe.

It wasn't long before Plucky's parents made their way down towards their son's location, making use of a ladder near the lid they had removed. When Plucky got close enough, his mother and father reached out their arms and as he waddled by they yanked out of the sewer waters! They very nearly embraced their son on the spot, before the stench wafting from him discouraged such an idea.

"Mommy! Daddy! I go down the hole! You save me!" Plucky exclaimed!

"Yes, Plucky," Plucky's mom replied in a relieved tone of voice. "We saved you. And we're glad you're alright."

Plucky's dad then added. "Now let's take you home and give you a bath. You'll need it after what you've been in! Oh, this is far worse than any of your dirty diapers! Never thought I'd say something like that."


"Yup, those were the days," Plucky giggled to himself as the flashback ended. Looking off into the distance, as if speaking to an audience that only he could see, he added. "So don't ever let them tell you that you can't go down the drain: Because you can! I certainly learned my lesson about that. And don't worry, folks. It all worked out in the end, as you can see!" If one looked closely, they could see a thick diaper taped to Plucky's rear, even though he was far past the age where he should no longer have been wearing them.

With a smile on his face, the school aged duck then ran through his house! His destination was clear in mind! Soon, he had reached the bathroom. And he knew what he was going to do, what he had come into the bathroom for.

It wasn't long before the sound of a toilet flushing could be heard coming from the bathroom. And Plucky's father knew what that meant. "Plucky!" He hollered at the top of his lungs in a clearly annoyed tone of voice.

"I wanna flush it again!" Plucky giggled even as he could hear his father and mother yelling at him, scolding him for not using the potty properly. Then there was a splash, and he added. "I wanna go down the hole again!"

Plucky's father and mother just sighed. Getting their son fully potty trained had proven to be much more difficult than either of them had anticipated.

THE END