A Tale of Two Bathrooms

I love my family and I "no" they love me. How do I know? Because yesterday they left me no toilet paper, no tissues, no Q-tips and no bath cups!

To add insult to injury, the empty tissue box had gotten stuck to the toilet tank and bits of cardboard box were now welded to the porcelain. Apparently restocking is a "mom" job. What a wonderful way to start my morning.

We have two full bathrooms on the main level of our house. Around 11 p.m. every night the same drama unfolds. My husband watches men in tights chase little spheres of stitched leather until he falls asleep in the chair. My son shoots and kills imaginary beings on his XBox until he is ready to collapse. My daughter texts and posts random photos on Tumblr until her mother confiscates her laptop. Then, they all converge on the main bathroom at once, and invariably it is occupied.

"Who's in there?" my husband (son, daughter) will demand. "Are you coming out soon? Hurry up, I have to get up early tomorrow!" A loud exchange generally ensues, doors slam, people fume. "Carol!" "Mom!" "What?" How do I always get dragged into this? I'm not waiting to use the bathroom. I'm trying to embarrass my family in a blog post.

There's another bathroom in my bedroom but everybody wants to use the "big" bathroom. Big babies! "Why can't she shower earlier?" "Why can't you shave earlier?" "She used up all the hot water!" It's like an endless ping-pong rally and nobody wants to blink first.

I try to be the voice of reason, but you can't use logic with irrational people. "Evan, if you knew you had to be up early you should have stopped playing video games hours ago." "Marty, you slept through the last four innings, you should have gone to bed." "Lauren, you should have blown your hair earlier."

I could use a whistle and a striped jersey. It's thankless being the mom. They all start blaming each other and I try to resume my role as Switzerland.

Apparently my son is keeping a porpoise or a dolphin somewhere in his room. Inevitably after he has "washed up" for the night, the counter looks as if Flipper took a bath in the sink. There's only about ten towels in reach of the vanity; he works out and has nice muscles, how about moving a couple of 'em to mop up the mess?

And don't get me started about cleaning out the trap in the shower drain. Years ago the comic strip "Family Circus" featured characters called "Ida Know" and "Not Me." The mom would ask, "Who broke my vase?" Each child would answer in turn, "Ida Know" or "Not Me," and then phantoms wearing appropriately labeled t-shirts would be shown fleeing the scene. Nobody in my house ever claims responsibility for anything; they automatically deny everything: "It's not mine." "I didn't do it." Listen, I'm the one who does the cleaning; I sure as heck know it wasn't ME!

I seriously am thinking about ordering a DNA kit from wherever Maury Povich buys his (in bulk, no doubt) to prove to my family who left the strays behind in the shower. Usually I just kvetch and carry on until someone else cleans out the offending drain as they shout, "I'll clean it but it wasn't mine!"

I think it may be time for an intervention. I can just see it now: "Does your family leave your bathroom a mess and you want to confront them on national TV? Call the Maury show..."