Miscommunications that Happened in a Bathroom I Was in.
Bathrooms are, by their nature, paradoxical spaces. They are both a place to poop in a glorified pot and a place where you go to scrub the grime of the day out from under your armpits. I spend a lot of time in bathrooms. Undoubtedly more than the average person due to the vast amount of water I drink and the hour a day I spend practicing my five faces of seduction in front of the mirror. Perhaps because of the high percentage of my life I spend in bathrooms, or perhaps just because I’m a weirdo, I have been party to a large catalog of bathroom related miscommunications. So I thought I’d knock out my therapy homework for the week (“open up to someone”) by sharing these personal encounters with you, people of the internet, who I sincerely hope will never recognize me on the street.
That Time We Made it Through Toothbrushgate
My eyebrows are my best feature. Raising them transforms my face from looking like a Shar Pei, into looking like a human girl. Thus, I raise my eyebrows 100% of the time I am awake and also when I am fake sleeping. Due to their esteemed role in my perceived attractiveness, I am not ashamed to admit that eyebrow care & maintenance numbers amongst my biggest financial and emotional investments. Not only must I be constantly vigilant that they don’t cross the line from “full-bodied” into “huntsmen,” but I must run through my brow-mobility exercises to ensure that age does not rob them of the Jim Carey-like elasticity that allows me to create dramatic tension in even the most mundane moments.
I also brush them. Every morning. Instead of my actual hair. And the instrument I like to use is a toothbrush because its size is really great and if I use one for sensitive-gums, it feels really nice. However, one morning, there was a mix-up. Now, I don’t really know whose fault it was. I’m inclined to say it wasn’t mine, because it wasn’t. But for the sake of journalistic integrity, I guess I must disclose that there is a sliver of reasonable doubt that my sister is also not to blame. However, one moment I am standing in front of the mirror brushing my brows and applauding myself on what nice arches I have, and the next moment Genevieve is staring at me agape and asking my why I am using her toothbrush on my facial hair. Fortunately the explanation, “this is my eyebrow toothbrush,” was enough and after rinsing it and handing it over for her subsequent use, we were able to mend our relationship and move past this.
That Time She Didn’t Want Me to Push on Her Head
Sometimes the most efficient way to become fast friends with a girl you meet on a night out, is to ask if she wants to come into the stall with you when you go to the bathroom. To pee, you perv. But also to bond. While I highly encourage this as a first step to friendship, I would like to caution you against asking certain questions. Such as the one I asked a constipated club-goer the other night — “Would you like me to push on your head?” — when she shared her inability to perform. Apparently this is something only my little sister likes and demands when she needs assistance lightening her load. It didn’t work out between that girl and I after that. But LA is a big city, so I’m not too worried about running into her.
That Time I Cried on the Toilet
I use an environmentally unacceptable amount of toilet paper. Now, again, this could be because I spend 30% of my life peeing, but I average 1–6 rolls per day. Some people call it wasteful; I call it thorough. I like the ridged kind a lot. I hate the kind you find at trailheads and truck-stops that is unbleached and that I’m pretty sure was put there by ISIS. I also vow to find the person who invented that ridiculously soft and thick toilet paper that is also water-resistant. It is the equivalent of trying to wipe with a Ziploc and is one of the few things that truly enrages me.
My mother is super accepting of my toilet paper particularity, and indulgent in my overconsumption. Every day she makes a trek from her downtown condo to Costco, and carries a 24-pack back on her head, to add it to the stock closet. Even when I’m not home visiting. She’s always really prepared. Or she was. Until the Christmas I came home, peed, reached for the roll, felt the telltale grain of single-ply, and realized it wasn’t Christmas at all. Or at least not a merry one. I cried. Sent my mom a sobbing, hiccupy voice-memo, right there from the toilet, asking her to be really, really honest about the state of our finances. Turns out, she found a few rolls in some closet and decided to use them up before opening a new bulk pack. We weren’t about to starve, and I still got the jump rope I asked for for Christmas. An all around misunderstanding.
That Time She Was Too Fresh
Everyone wants to smell their best. Especially down there. I’m talking about in your pants. Which is why the Vagina Industry has rolled out a veritable cornucopia of scented products, among them FemFresh wipes. Once, I got a complimentary pack of said wipes after a wax and left them on the bathroom counter without thinking twice. My mistake, I agree.
A week later all of us sisters are in the bathroom when one of the twins grabs the pack, whips out a wipe like it’s her day job, and rubs it all over her face. It turns out this was not a performance art piece she had staged, but rather she had been using them everyday for a week to remove her makeup.
I laughed myself right to the floor, where, after finally managing to get my wheezing under control, I encouraged her to read the back of the pack. With love, she threw them at my head. So I read the back and realized the aforementioned Vagina Industry is too scared to print the word “vagina” on anything. Instead, opting for instructions like “freshen up after a long steamy day in yoga pants,” and, “Ride the bus? Use us to wipe your way back to your feminine side.” Forget about using them as make-up remover, with language like, “for a long lasting fresh feeling,” it’s a miracle young girls everywhere aren’t chewing these wipes like gum.
The great news for my sister is her skin looked awesome, and she smelled like cucumbers. The bad news is the shame, of course. She has since relocated and is living with what I hear is a very nice family in Vermont.
