Bathroom Blues

We recently rearranged the house, swapping bedrooms between siblings. The boys are now both downstairs (now named the “man cave”, more due to the aromas than the residents) and my daughter has taken over the second upstairs bedroom.

With this so-called minor move, along with all the grunting and groaning whilst moving the furniture, my daughter also moved her bathroom and grooming tools to the upstairs bathroom. This also produced some epic grunting and groaning, mostly from me.

You see, our house is fairly old. Built in 1978 or 1979, it was designed with bathrooms that allowed you to do as the name suggested – bathe, clean your hands and ‘go to the bathroom’. Our bathrooms are nowhere near the monuments to personal cleanliness that are designed these days.

I have seen new home that has a bathroom that is larger than my living room. They have a nine-foot soaker tub with jets, mood lighting with a retractable flat screen TV, a separate shower that can hold five people (don’t go there), a separate area for the toilet (now that’s a smart thing), two sinks with cupboards for each, a three sided fireplace, a sauna and space for yoga/a massage table/motorcycle parking.

We have a bathtub (small), toilet and sink with a small cupboard underneath. There is room for a cabinet over the biffy and one towel rack, which has to hold five towels.

One towel for me and two each for the ladies. Apparently, one needs one towel for their hair and one towel for the rest of them. All these years I’ve been doing it wrong. Again.

My darling wife has done an amazing job at compacting and organizing her toiletries, make-up and other feminine items so that I can find my one razor, toothbrush and towel when I need to. The sheer amount of ‘stuff’ that resides in the bathroom boggles the imagination.

When my boy and I were sharing the bathroom with my wife, we only needed two towels between the men and a small area in the cabinet to put two razors, one can of shaving gel and one hairbrush. The brush is mine, even though my bald spot is big enough that having a brush is becoming moot. My boy’s hair is short enough not to need such frivolous things as brushes or combs.

Now that my daughter has moved in, I find I am losing real estate in the one place in the house that used to be a calm, quiet retreat.

There are now three brushes on the sink (none of them mine), bobby pins, lipstick cases, mascara tubes and other ‘feminine products’. There are seven bottles of shampoo and five bottles of conditioner, three types of facial or body scrubs, soap, two bottles of body wash and various types of scrubbers, puffs and exfoliating gloves.

Scrubbers, puffs and exfoliating – sounds like an industrial plant. Don’t tell the girls I said that.

Short showers for my daughter are in the range of twenty-five to thirty minutes, and she’s the smallest member of the family. The term ‘quick shower’ is an oxymoron in this household. The only saving grace is the boys only shower when they need to, which could be once or twice a month.

Everything will change again in a few weeks when my daughter heads off to university. The shipping costs may be enormous to get all the clothes and bathroom items across the country, but I’m willing to shoulder the burden. I hate carrying my toothbrush around with me all day.