sharing few bathrooms
creates a suboptimal
situation … yup!
Adapted from the passage in the article in The Guardian, Are there billions more people on Earth than we thought? If so, it’s no bad thing by Jonathan Kennedy, where Mr. Kennedy writes:
“… as anyone who has crammed into one house with their extended family over Christmas knows, many people sharing few bathrooms creates a suboptimal situation.
You won’t be able to shower exactly when you want – and you’d better make it a short one. But this hardly amounts to the end of civilization.
In fact, compromise and sharing is probably closer to most people’s idea of a good life than having the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want.”
I will admit, right off the bat, I got nothing to complain about.
I grew up in a big family, 11 kids though 10 at time was the most who called home, home.
But I grew up in a big house.
There were seven kids when we moved into The Big House on Sligh Blvd. in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I grew up, then I showed up and then my three little brothers.
That house was BIG.
It was a split level and there were three floors plus a huge basement so big, we played floor hockey down there.
It had six bedrooms but two and half bathrooms (not counting the now-a-days so called en suite bathroom off my parents bedroom.
For some reason, the upstairs bathroom had a tub and a shower, but for most of my life, Mom refused to put a shower curtain over the tub as that’s where so would throw us four little boys for our Saturday Night baths all at once and Mom would sit on the side of the tub and scrub our hair with soapy smelling Breck Shampoo.
There was a shower stall in the laundry room but never once did I ever see anyone use it.
By the time I could remember things, Mom had put a closet rod in there and hung up clean laundry that was waiting to be distributed to the bedrooms.
With 4 places where you could take care of things, even when 12 people in the house, I can’t complain.
My wife’s family had 12 kids, nine of them girls and for a good chunk of their lives together, made due with one bathroom.
We all managed quite nicely and then would come the holiday season.
As my older brothers and sister got married and moved out, they all came back at Christmas time and as their families grew, the big house would get filled up.
Sometimes other relatives would show up at the same time and we would be spread out on sofas and floors with blankets or sleeping bags.
I will repeat and agree with Mr. Kennedy when he states: “… anyone who has crammed into one house with their extended family over Christmas knows, many people sharing few bathrooms creates a suboptimal situation.”
It seems like it was my brother Paul, who almost every year made the drive at Christmas time from his home on east coast with his wife and four kids, who said that “It wasn’t difficult to take a shower with hot water. It was just a matter of timing.”
Needing the bathroom for bathroom business and bathing was one thing.
Growing up, my family brought the suboptimal situation to a whole other level as we always managed to come down with what we called “The Stomach Flu.”
Norovirus, The 24 Hour Bug or my favorite from Great Britain, Winter Vomiting, it all came down to the fact that at some point, when the house full to bursting, between Christmas and New Years, some one would announce, I GOT TO THROW UP.
Your first thought was anger at the person who got sick first and who we blamed for bringing the bug into the house and your second thought was, who will be next and your last thought was, when will it be my turn.
Because, at some point, it would be your turn.
Was it better to be first, get it over with despite having everyone mad at you?
Or to be last and worry that every twinge, every stomach growl was the beginning of something worse.
We had buckets and bowls and pans.
The first person who came down with the bug would get into bed along with an old revere-wear stainless steel double boiler pot that was indestructible and also known as the barf bowl.
I came home from school once to find Mom making brownies and melting chocolate squres in that double boiler and I would not eat any of those brownies.
Mom made lots of brownies but if I didn’t SEE her make them in that bowl, I was fine.
It is hard for me to imagine the production line of buckets and bowls and soiled bedding that Mom had to deal with during these outbreaks.
Not only was she in charge of housekeeping but chief nurse as well as dietician.
She would monitor all the sick ones as well as encourage the ones who had yet to fall sick and she comforted those on the comeback.
At some point you would be offered a milkshake (with a raw egg in it to help get ‘some weight back on’ that Mom added without telling us) and you knew the worst was over.
I remember one year giving in to the inevitable when I came down with it late at night.
Knowing I wouldn’t be sleeping, I made a log of all the times I barfed and later graphed it out.
It was then that I noticed that the times between barfing decreased – you threw up more and more often – until it didn’t and once you had a period of time longer between barfing than the previous time, the barfing peaked and you were over the worst and maybe had just one or two more times to go.
After learning this I tried to ‘game’ the stomach flu by trying to throw up fast and furious to get to that magic peak but I learned it had to happen when it had to happen.
For some reason, I never got my family interested in my research but when I became a parent I always kept an eye on things and could tell when one the kids had made the turn.
I was older and I had my own family but I still knew that many people sharing few bathrooms creates a suboptimal situation.
I might not be able to shower exactly when I want – and I’d better make it a short one. But this hardly amounts to the end of civilization.
In fact, compromise and sharing is probably closer to most people’s idea of a good life than having the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want.”
It certainly can get worse.
No Haiku For You 