Bath time is sacred. I enjoy it an unreasonable amount, but a private bath isn’t always easy to achieve.
When my daughter was very young, I announced I needed a few minutes after work to decompress in the tub and then she could tell me everything, ask me anything. At first that was okay with her – until it wasn’t. She sat outside the bathroom door, asking me is it time yet?
Then we got a puppy and she “helped” him get into the bathroom, so she could shout from outside, “Buster! Naughty! Come back here. Mommy is having her bath time.” Then it was “Can I come in and get Buster?” Then the two of them sat on the bath mat and they were so cute, I surrendered. The new rule was you can sit here if you learn a song. Starting from whenever she could carry a tune, we sang in the bathroom together while sharing my “private, sacred, must-have” bath time.
Now her little girl, Caedan, is already bending the definition of the word, “privacy” to suit her needs. She’s supposed to ask, “Do you need privacy?” before opening a door. From the other side of the door, I heard, “Do you want me to scrub your back with that big brush?” and “May I open the door now? With no puppy to use as an excuse, she employs other means.
She visited me in a hotel room and while poking around the amenities laid out for guests, she asked, “What’s this?” Until that day, she’d never seen a bar of soap. She knows from hand sanitizer and liquid bath wash, but a world of miniature soaps beckoned.
Back home, I related this to our friend, Pam, who promptly sent an assortment of guest-size bars of soap in all colors and fragrances to Caedan. My daughter put them into a pretty dish where she can reach them.
During a recent visit, I was soaking away in a “private” bath when she knocked on the door and asked, “Would you like to use my soap?” I sensed some hesitation. This was the ultimate sacrifice. I said yes just to see what would happen. She told me she would choose which soap. (Generous – but not to a fault.) She brought it in and handed it to me, but a couple of seconds later said, “I need my soap back now” and quickly exited.
From now on when I really need privacy while visiting my daughter’s house, all I have to do to be left alone is mess with those little soaps. Note for Christmas list: A stocking filled with bars of Ivory soap – “So pure it floats.”
Ó Anita Garner