#94 - A Little Room to Read

A Little Room to Read

8/31/06 (#94)

I confess, I have given more coverage to the (usually) unspoken nuances of a visit to la salle de bain than most writers. Yet there's one topic I have not yet broached---the loo as library.

George Costanza is likely America's best known bathroom reader, forced to purchase an expensive art book that he had taken from the shelves to accompany him to the bookstore's facilities during an episode of Seinfeld. I'm not sure how the rest of America responded to this storyline, but for those of us who find the written word to be, at times, the perfect laxative, the responses were likely the same: The art book was good for the gag, but it was a terrible choice for the task at hand: a coffee table book is much too cumbersome to handle in the confines of a public stall. (Frankly, it would be an awkward handful in my bathroom at home, too.)

I know for a fact that it's not just Costanza. Not because I have a stack of old New Yorker magazines in the bathroom at home, and not because I often find those magazines on a different page than where I left them the previous day---I know because I sat on the train one morning while an exasperated woman in the seat next to me struggled to assure her Mom that despite his not answering the phone, Simon was definitely at home. Her side of the conversation went something like this:

"He's home, Mom........when did you last talk to him?........he doesn't have a car, Mom, he wouldn't have gone anywhere. He's probably in the bathroom............no, that's not that long for Simon...........I don't know, Mom, but...........Mom, trust me, he's not like us. That's not that long. Call again in 10 minutes, I'm sure you'll reach him."

"He's not like us." The phrase rang in my head as if the woman had said, "Well, you know how white people are." Since when was reading an act worthy of judgment? Simon was home alone, and of all of the unmentionable things he might be engaged in, knocking off a chapter of Clive Cussler before getting on with the day's events ought to register pretty low on the sin-o-meter.

Some folks see any activity in the bathroom as pure necessity, a chore to be dispensed with as quickly as possible. If you want to curl up with a Barbara Kingsolver paperback, schedule some time on the living room couch or relax in the backyard hammock. This is clearly the attitude of someone who didn't grow up in a house full of kids, where neither couch nor hammock offered the requisite atmosphere for concentration.

I grew up the youngest of four siblings, in a house full of noogies and charley horses and near-perpetual adolescent harassment. The bathroom was the only door with a lock on it, so the bathroom became a sanctuary, a respite from the slings and arrows of daily life. (For all of us---I understood the finer points of the charley horse well enough to dish it out, too.) At eight years old, it was enough to simply enjoy the silence, but boredom eventually got the better of me and I started reading. (Though there may be some nature/nurture issues in play, as I have a vivid image of a small stack of Reader's Digest magazines resting somewhere in every bathroom of my folks various houses.)(Reader's Digest is arguably the ideal choice to employ for this literary service: lots of short articles, several longer human interest pieces, various pages of humor and anecdotes, a word-power quiz----all in all, the prefect companion for either an efficient visit or an extended stay.) Reader's Digest, Golden books, superhero comics---any book that could safely sit on the back of the toilet when the lid was open was a qualified candidate for bathroom literacy.

As I grew older, I came to realize that reading on the toilet was more than a means to pass time---productivity, it often seemed, was closely linked to available verbiage, a disconcerting fact when having to use the commode in the house of bathroom non-readers. It's bad enough when he only book available is The Complete History of Chester A. Arthur, Volume 1, but sometimes the selection is even worse: I have read shampoo bottles, aspirin side-effect warnings, return policies printed on receipts found in my wallet, even the side panels of various Tampax products. It's a cause and effect conditioning issue, and if I wanted that effect, I sometimes had to find a few lines of cause. If that cause had to come in the form of a can of Edge shaving gel, then three cheers for Edge's patented blend of moisturizers that help to prevent painful nicks, cuts and razor burn.

Now I'm a homeowner with a very active 4-year old, and when I feel inundated by the day job, dirty dishes, dog walking and doll house games, I still retire to the smallest room of the house to lose myself in a bit of fiction. (Perhaps this was how I developed a love for the short story---reading a novel at 15 minutes a day would make the lifespan of a character feel like it's unfolding in real time.) Sure, leaning my elbows on my knees for the duration of a David Sedaris essay will cut off the circulation to my feet, and I will be forced to hobble out to the couch with the grace of the Tin Man and wait for the pins-and-needles sensation to pass, but Sedaris is a funny guy, and the opportunity for focused attention is worth the mild discomfort that follows.

I've noticed that my daughter Sage, not quite four years old, seems to have inherited this gene. She can't read yet, but she refuses to take care of business (our dog-walk inspired euphemism) without having a pad of paper and a crayon to sketch angels and dogs and abstract office buildings. (Or perhaps it's mailmen, cats, and our cereal-box shelf---tough to know without asking.) I found it quite endearing until I suffered an alarming realization: Bathrooms. Art. Good grief, have I spawned the female Costanza? If she starts asking me to call her Sage Vandelay, the Crayolas will be confined to the living room.

©2006 wpreagan