When my brother came out and told me that he had just squished two containers of play dough down the sink I didn’t realise he meant literally down the plug hole.

My little brother had just had his sixth birthday, making him eight years younger than me and about ten years dumber. We got along well enough but he sure does a lot of stupid things.

This latest disaster was definitely at the high end of that list. After looking at the sink to see if I could fix it, I begrudgingly went out and told Mum. She gave me a look of disbelief as we walked her into the bathroom. I told her I had tried my best to fix it but the play dough was stuck too far down the drain for me to be able to get at it.

She shook her head, yelled at my brother and headed for the kitchen. I didn’t like telling on my brother but I really didn’t have much choice. If mother had turned on the tabs and flooded the bathroom my brother would have been in much more trouble.

This wasn’t the first time my brother had stuck things where he shouldn’t have. Mum told my brother in no uncertain terms that he was going to be paying for the rain replacement. Melbourne plumbers are pretty good at getting drains unblocked but my brother should have known better in the first place.

My brother got off lightly if you ask me, if I had done anything like that I wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week. I was kind of looking forward to seeing the drain camera inspections, Melbourne contractors have some very cool toys.

After the plumbers had fixed the blocked drain and left, my brother came out of his room with his head hanging low. He walked up to Mum and apologised before wrapping his arms around her. He did some silly things, but he was a really sweet boy at heart.