Bathroom Routines

The bathroom is the great leveler.  All of us end up in there whether we be CEO or salesman.  Everyone showers at one point or another, brushes our teeth, and yes, once a day sits down on the throne and performs about the least regal act we can think of.  Just think!  The Prime Minister or President is no better than you, in that at some time in their life they have gotten halfway through good 'ol Movement No.2 of the Turd Symphony and realized that there is no toilet paper left, and sat there stymied.

And everyone eventually arrives at their own unique Bathroom Routines.  You may not know that you have these routines, but you will be made aware of them when you move in with somebody.  Because they will have different Bathroom Routines.  And should you have occasion to share bathroom time (for example as  husband and wife, or just a roommate with personal space issues) you will find yourself amused, bewildered, and even horrified by this other person's routines.  You will have internal monologues that you never imagined.  What the f&@k is that doing in there?!  Is that a used bandage??  And why are there goddammed dishes in the bathtub?!

When my husband and I moved in together, he pointed out some of my routines to me (some of them in a jesting manner, others accompanied much eye-rolling) and I will admit a few of them now in this porcelain confessional.

Q-Tipping

There was a Saturday Night Live sketch (it could have been MAD TV, I don't totally remember) about this dangerous new practice "the kids" were into, which basically equated with getting high the thrill one gets from cleaning their ears with a Q-Tip.  I remember seeing it and being the only one not laughing. They're right: that shit is addictive.  

I know on the package of Q-Tips it shows little cutesy illustrations of the swab being used to clean a keyboard (something the package designer has obviously never tried, because they would know that trying to do so is like trying to clean a cinder block wall with a rubber-handled mop), or removing the crud from around baby's eyes.  And then they have the repeated stern warnings not to stick the Q-Tips into your ears.  HAH!!  Let me tell ya, pal, I (and I suspect most people)are buying this packet of cushiony twigs to do nothing but stick them in our ears.  I might use a few for removing eye makeup, but that's about it.  Much like the "back massager" industry, the cotton swab manufacturers have built an entire empire on a product that is officially meant for any use except the one for which people are actually purchasing it. No one buys a box of Q-Tips so that they can do arts and crafts and then coyly, when no one is looking, decides to just "try out" cleaning an ear.  You buy that box, rip it open, and start rooting around with a tiny stick, millimeters from your ear drum.

I am completely obsessed with cleaning my ears.  I have to do it each and every morning, immediately after getting out of the shower, and sometimes a second time in the day, if I'm feeling particularly wax-laden.  If I go somewhere where I have to spend the night away from home, I make sure to take at least a dozen Q-Tips with me.  Just in case there is some sort of wax emergency.  And not just any tip will do: I only get the ones with the compressed paper shafts. The kind with the plastic shafts are too bendy and there is never enough cotton on the end so I end up scraping up the inside of my ear.  Not the ear drum, relax, people.  I would never go too far. I am a professional.

Rinsing the Razor

Many of us ritually scrape the excess fur off of our bodies for a variety of reasons: cultural conditioning, vanity, hygiene.  Sometimes simply so that we won't bristle our significant other.  No one wants to feel like their face is being grated off by a piece of 150 grit sandpaper every time they make out with their boyfriend.  And it's really disturbing when making out with your girlfriend.

I have two razors: an electric one that rarely gets used, and a 4-blade disposable one that is my go-to shaving implement.  It gets used in the shower.  I don't really go in for shaving cream or lotion. I know I should, I know it's better, but I'm cheap and it's just one more step in a shower that usually already is taking too long.  I just get in there and put blades to hair and be done with it.

Recently I was sharing bathroom time with my husband and during my shaving routine he started laughing at me.  Well no one wants to be laughed at while they're naked, so I snapped at him, "What's so funny?"

"You're not accomplishing anything by doing that," he chuckled.  He was poking fun at me because when I shave, at intervals I leave off the actual hair removal and run the razor through the water to flush out the excess stubble.  A clogged razor does me no good.  But since I had been facing away from the water, I was just thrusting the razor over my shoulder into what I thought was the stream from the showerhead.  According to my husband, I was merely waving it around in the air, attempting to clean it via magic.  I told him that my plan was to put the hair out of my sight and strenuously ignore it until it felt awkward and went away on its own.

They See Me Rollin, They Hatin'...

Apparently I use too much toilet paper.  Just ask my husband.  My level of toilet paper usage never crossed my mind until I began sharing a bathroom.  I remember him walking by the bathroom door at some point in our past and doing a double-take. "Whoa! Take it easy on the TP!" he admonished.

Take it easy?  Look man, there is no polite way to say this, but until they popularize bidets here in the States, I gotta get clean somehow.  And that somehow is with toilet paper.  As much as I need to get the job done.  I don't care if I have to unroll enough to stuff a pillow if that's what it takes to keep skid marks outta my underwear and me from doing the Walk of the Unclean Bunghole for the rest of the day.  Sorry, but it is what it is (and yes, I am aware that many people hate that expression, but you are reading a blog entry about potty cleanliness, so don't act like your standards are so high).  He has been on me ever since about me using more paper than he thinks I should.  Like there are regulations somewhere hidden away in the dusty offices of the Bureau of Disposable Tissues that he has consulted and is dutifully counting how many squares I pull off the roll.

I will admit that I have lived (and worked) in some places that have "finicky" toilets.  You know the ones.  You can only pee and put two squares of paper down there and THAT'S IT or the whole damn thing gets clogged.  I have promised myself that if I end up doing a bathroom remodel and I have to buy a new toilet, I am going to make sure that I get one that you could flush an entire houseplant down, pot and all, with one powerful whoosh.  Let's stop playing around with these pansy crappers that they seem to like to install just about everywhere nowadays.  Hint: it's not a "water-saver" toilet if I have to flush three times so that I don't hurt its delicate constitution.

A Little Help From My Friends

Now this last one is not a routine that I initiated, it's just something that happens as a bizarre side effect of me being in the loo.  If I go into the bathroom, within 90 seconds there will be a cat in there with me.  I know I could close the door, but I don't really mind them most of the time.  It's just weird if anyone else were to witness it.  

Sit down, start doing my business, and here comes one of the cats, strolling in like, "Hey!  Whatcha up to? You need a hand with that?"  Depending on which cat it is, they may either pace back and forth butting their head into my shins or try to climb into my lap.  Sometimes I allow this, but more often than not they try for the lap when I'm just trying to run in, pee real quick, and get outta there.  And they want to be on the lap for a long time. They hunker down like it's the coziest seat in the house, meanwhile my left leg is going to sleep. One of them likes to get into the bathtub and chase her own tail while she waits for me.  They're like bizarre, furry little bathroom attendants.  I keep waiting for the day when they start offering me towels and put a little dish out expecting me to tip them.  I don't know what they get out of it.  I think for the cats, all bathroom activity has to happen when we are together in the same room.  This probably explains why one of them always has to come take a dump right when I am in the middle of trying to clean the litter box.  

No matter how much attention they are getting from me, once they hear the toilet paper rolling it's like and air raid siren and they bail right the F outta there.  Not sure what they think is about to happen.  They're probably off to report to my husband that I'm using too much paper again.

How Did I Get Here and Why Are All These Dead People Talking to Me?

If you would have told me maybe 15 years ago that one day I would regularly be consulting with dead people and asking them for practical advice, I would have probably laughed and told you to stop trying to steal plots from Tim Burton movies and passing them off as real life. And yet here I am.  How the heck did I arrive at this place that seems at this point totally natural to me and yet highly suspect to lots of other people?

I wish I could tell you something exciting and mystical, like "It came to me in a dream!" or that I did a bunch of 'shrooms and communed with the cosmos.  But my life is much more boring than all of that.  In fact  I won't even eat the kind of mushrooms that come on a pizza, but let's not get distracted with my food issues right now.

I didn't wake up one day and decide to start communing with spirits (man, I hate that word, but I suppose I need to start out using language that makes sense more or less to other people).  It wasn't even on my radar. I was doing practical things like working and going to college and trying to pay the bills and even navigate a divorce.  Pro Tip, kids: maybe try not to get married at 18; we all don't know what we want or need for ourselves as much as we think we do, not that our family can tell us that and expect us to listen.

It was at the much older and wiser age of 19 (heh) that I started dating the man who would be the Right One for me, now my husband. His family, much to my delight, was weird.  And liked me.  More or less. You know how some people go all out decorating their house for Christmas, all Griswold style?  They did it for Halloween. They laughed at fart jokes. They were utterly inappropriate, and I fit into their quirky niche like I was meant to go there.

One of the novel things I experienced for the first time with Hubby and his family, which seemed rather inconsequential  at first, was the talking board. The Matty (name to be explained later).  So that we are all on the same page here, and everyone understands what I am talking about, I will say this word one time and avoid it hereafter, like one avoids a racial slur: this is a thing that many people would call a Ouija Board.  Bleh!  Patooie!  Really, that is a name that was used by a Parker Brothers game board, and it carries a stigma with it. You may have seen one. They're all over silly horror movies, catching on fire, letting in "Evil Spirits," etc.  You may have used one.  Maybe at a party.  People might have been drunk and asking stupid questions like, "Was I a princess in a past life??"  Let us be clear, the Ouija was a mass-produced novelty item, which existed for the purpose of making money.  I refer to it only to give some frame of reference, and I'm sure I will post in the future about what makes a good taking board versus a piece of crap.

Nevertheless, I saw my first board at my husband's parent's house. It was a round one, not square, like any I had ever seen before.  Because this was over 10 years ago, I started grilling my husband about how my first board experiences went, because to tell you the truth, I don't remember much. Turns out neither does he.  Does memory loss start at 30?  Sigh.  

I think I remember him first mentioning that his family had this "board" that they got from his grandmother.  A board that you could ask things.  Questions.  And much like many people, because he didn't say "Ouija" board (because it's not), I didn't really know what he was talking about at first, before I laid eyes on the thing.  I had a mental picture of literally a board.  Like a piece of wood that you could go buy at a lumber yard.  I know: I'm dumb.  I finally got the idea when he brought it out.  Oh a board. Got it.

The first time I went on the board, I think I was with my husband and his mom. I don't remember what we talked about. I remember having no real opinion either way going into it. I wasn't gung-ho, ready to talk to some ghosts, have a séance and summon up Elvis or Abe Lincoln or anything.  I wasn't a naysayer, either.  I was just curious.  Alright, let's see how this works. Let's see what this thing is.

Like many people, I am a slow boat to turn.  I am not generally someone who turns over new leaves overnight, kicks habits cold turkey, or busts down doors in life.  Ask anyone who has tried to get me to stop inserting the word "like" into my speech.  SoCal habits die hard.  And this board thing was no different.  As I began to use the board with my husband, I had questions.  Many, many questions.  Things had to be proven to me. I had to see evidence in my life.  I was not just taking the word of the Unseen, on good faith, no questions asked.  I'm very practical that way.  Show me.  Prove it.

And you know what? They did.  And do. Again and again.  Sometimes in so blatant a manner that I want to burst out laughing, or grab the phone and call hubby and say, "Dude!  You will not believe what just happened!"  Yes, I also say "dude" a lot.  Nobody's perfect.

A decade later, I find myself using the board (and sometimes other means) to talk to dead people and get their advice and listen to their stories, and this is integrated into my life with about the same normalcy as doing laundry, going to the movies, or playing with my cats.  It seems very mundane and even practical to me, and sometimes I forget that everyone doesn't do this and that it seems bizarre and even crazy to many people.

So this will be my blog. I wanted to archive somewhere my experiences of this sort and tell this story. And  for balance (because I am neurotic about making symmetrical, and because I wanted to show that people like me exist and we do not all dress like gypsy fortune tellers from the movies and talk in fruity prose) I am going to post about my regular life, too.  It's pretty normal, more or less.  I go to work.  I argue with Hubby about what to make for dinner.  I have road rage.  Sometimes I sleep with one arm at a funny angle and I wake up at two in the morning needing to pee and almost fall on my ass when I try to grab the door knob to the bathroom and discover that my arm is numb. You know, normal people stuff.  I just occasionally ask someone who used to be alive if next month is a good time to start a blog. And they say yes, so I guess I'll get on it.