Sometimes the imaginary friend is an idiot

The last couple of days, Ellie has been a slave to Dora the Explorer. Not in the sense that she watches the show nonstop - thankfully the TV hasn't even been on for the last two days. No, Ellie has decided that Dora is her best friend, and she does whatever Dora tells her to. If Dora says that her birthday party is tonight, well then Mom and Dad sure as heck better not try to enforce bedtime, because "Dora said I HAVE to go to her party!!!" And if Dora says that the pink and purple argyle socks are a good match for the yellow pajama shirt (never mind that it's 80 degrees out), then Ellie will wear those socks with pride. You get the idea. Whatever Dora says, goes.

When Ellie got up this morning she came to hang out with me in the bathroom while I was getting ready. Our master shower and toilet are in a separate room from the sinks (a feature I will never be able to live without again.) I was at the sink and Ellie went in to go potty. I reminded her to throw away her pull-up when she was finished. Then I stopped paying attention. After a couple of minutes I realized that she'd flushed but was still standing over the toilet, staring into it. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, "It's not flushing."

Our toilets are notorious for backing up at inconvenient times, and little kids and their penchant for excesses of toilet paper don't help the situation. I told her I would take care of it and she went back to her room for underwear while I promptly forgot about the toilet. When I walked through to the closet I noticed the lid up. I went to close it, and this is what I found:

Can you guess what Ellie said when I asked her why she'd tried to flush something she'd thrown away every other morning for a year?

"Dora said I have to."