No rest for the soggy
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t think I’ve used the bathroom alone since 1998.
That was both the year my oldest daughter was born and the year privacy ceased to exist.
Similarly to when I need to use the telephone, children who have avoided me all day come out of the woodwork to ask me a question when they hear the bathroom door close or the shower curtain drawn. Typically involving either the television or requests for food. I know these questions could wait, but my children seem to feel that they are of utmost importance.
Disturbing my shower more recently, however, are our cats. Now numbering five – since the night a month or so ago when a long-haired calico kitten that was all fluff and no substance came wandering up the driveway to rub and purr against my legs (too friendly to be feral, she was obviously a drop-off) – our cats invaded and destroyed any semblance or pretense of bathroom privacy I had left.
Showers are now a race to see if I can get washed up and out before one or more cats join me. Sometimes, they sit on the tub edge and bat at the water streaming down. Sometimes, they climb the shower curtain and peer at me over the top of the rod. Always, they end up knocking every bottle of shampoo, can of shaving cream and toy that inhabits the tub down into the shower with me.
Their obsession with water and the bathroom does not limit itself to the shower, however. Just try to wash your face in this house. Really, I dare you. See if you can lather up and rinse in less time than it takes for three cats to leap onto the sink and get in your way.
Just an FYI, cat hair sticks to soapy skin.
This is at least partially my husband’s fault. Upon discovering his favorite cat, Wilbur, enjoyed playing in the water, Hubby began to turn on the faucet – just a tiny bit – whenever he entered the bathroom and Wilbur was there. Not one to miss out, Wilbur began sleeping in the bowl of the sink so he would always be available for that special toy.
Within a couple days, Wilbur’s brother and sister, Bruce and Cali, figured out something was happening in the bathroom. They, too, began spending time on the sink, awaiting the sound of footsteps heading to the bathroom.
They would swat at the little stream, stick their paws down the drain to see where it was going, and even bite at it, trying to catch it. It was so funny that everyone began turning it on for them. After only a few days, the cats stopped living in the bathroom and instead began racing toward it whenever the door creaked, the light went on or the commode flushed.
So now here we are, with three-plus cats trained like Pavlov’s dogs, and me, who just wants to shower in peace. I suppose I could lock the door to keep them out, but I know what would happen next.
The second the lock turned, my kids would suddenly have a burning question about cartoons or a need for a sandwich.
Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.