Bathroom Zen

I remember when bathrooms used to be a sacred place, a private chamber where you could attend to your *ahem* bathroom duties in peace and quiet. Luxuriate in a hot bubble bath. Meditate in the shower. Maybe read a few chapters of a favorite book if that was your thing. (In my family growing up, all bathrooms were required to hold a magazine rack and a small built-in bookcase.)

Funny how things change.

For now, I can hardly enter the bathroom before one or two small dependent people charge in to make sure I never have bathroom zen. 

Part of the problem is I can never close the door when I’m the only caretaker around. Which means trying to do my business as quickly as possible since Luke is slamming the toilet lid against my back every 2 seconds. Then, while I’m at the sink and my back is turned, he’s off to practice how quickly he can unravel a full roll of toilet paper (his personal best: 3 seconds.)  As I lean over, trying to roll up the toilet paper that is snaking all around the floor, (and you know how those sad re-rolled ones look) Elise barges in, hitting my backside with the violent flinging open of the door. Which launches my forehead into the wall since LOOK, IT IS A SMALL BATHROOM.

As I turn around to assess the damage in the mirror and determine whether I have blood running down my face, Luke is busy trying to flush the toilet 100 times—successfully triggering the flush every so often for a steady background chorus of whooshing. Elise is opening the lid to sprinkle little bits of the toilet paper that has been unrolled AGAIN into the continual vortex. 

“Look mama! It’s going around and around!”

I herd the small dependent people (like herding cats) who weave in, around, and through my legs, and stumble out, looking for the sign I missed on the way in that said, “All Abandon Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.”

Then, I swear off liquids for the rest of the day. Om.