Not an urban legend. At least not this time.

Over the New Year holiday, we stayed in a motel. No heavy partying that evening and all in bed by 11:45pm. We kept our eyes open long enough to ring in the New Year at midnight. Despite some minor inconveniences during the night - weird dog noises and blood running from my left eye - no kidding (and it's true about the no partying), it was rather uneventful at the motel. I had had only TWO, count 'em 2, drinks. Glasses of water. Good ole H2O. That was it.

But the next day, after my morning ablutions, I happened to glance down into the motel toilet and saw this:



HUH?

Do you see that strange brown stuff?

No. It's not that.

I flushed the pot and it was still there. I flushed it again and again.

Still there.

I had only had water to drink the night before. It could not be hallucinations.

What the heck is that? Let's take a closer look, shall we?



Doesn't it look like tentacles?

However it didn't move at all, except for when you would flush.

So I flushed. A lot. It wouldn't go away. It would just wave in the water.

What in the world had suddenly appeared in the motel toilet overnight?

Being the brave and curious soul that I am, I mean, I know it couldn't possibly be a roach living IN a toilet, I wrapped my hand in a gob of toilet paper and reached down to touch it.

Like an anemone it pulled back into that little hole. At least it seemed to do so. Ok. Perhaps something WAS living in the motel toilet bowl after all

You know, there are true stories of rats and such climbing up through the sewer pipes. Maybe this is one of those things, I thought. Hence the photographic documentation.

Then I waited for my mom to come in.. My mother, braver soul than I for she will actually stomp on a roach, wrapped her hand in a plastic bag and reached down to grab it.

Here's one last blurry look:



She swiftly and fearlessly swiped at the tentacles and grabbed and pulled. Alas, I didn't take any pictures of the creature now out in the open.

However, it turns out to have been a book of matches that had somehow become lodged in the toilet. Now the mystery is how it got there in the first place as there were no matches in the room when we arrived and we don't carry them.

Hmmmmmm.

Not really unusual after all.

Hope your holidays were more exciting.