A Bathroom Memoir

Twelve years ago, I ripped the closet door off in the downstairs bathroom. The bathroom – really just a powder room with toilet, sink and closet - was so tiny that you couldn’t open the closet door unless the bathroom door was closed first. 

I was in a cleaning rage. It was a hot summer day and I was cleaning out the closet when I suddenly became aware that I could hardly breathe. I was sweating profusely and the bathroom was covered with all the junk I had emptied from the overstuffed closet.  I couldn’t even move the stool I was standing on to close the closet door so I could open the bathroom door to get out and get some air.

“Help me! I’m stuck in here!” I screamed

My son knocked on the door to ask if I was all right.

 “Get me a hammer! Quick!”  I yelled. He said nothing, asked nothing, ran for the hammer, pushed the door open just wide enough to hand it to me and took off.

At first, I gently tapped on the hinges that held the closet door in place, but after years of being painted over, they wouldn’t budge.  As the sweat was pouring down my face, I let out a few carnal screams and whacked harder at the hinges, twisting them sideways and finally loosening the door.  When the door finally slammed down on the floor, it took with it about six inches of wood from around the molding leaving deep holes where the hinges once were.

Holding the door with both hands, I realized that I had cornered myself into a space the size of a coffin. I couldn’t get the closet door out of the bathroom without opening the bathroom door and I couldn’t open the bathroom door because I was standing behind it holding the closet door.

“Help me! I’m stuck in here!!” I screamed again, but no one came this time. I let out a few colorful expletives and then I began to laugh at the ridiculous situation I was in. I put the door down for a moment to survey the area and saw that I could slide the door between the toilet bowl and the wall, and that would give me just enough room to open the bathroom door and get out.

My son was waiting on the other side, eyes bulging at the sight of me dragging out the closet door.  “Holy Sh..! Dad’s gonna’ be pissed!” 

That night, my husband used the bathroom and came out looking very confused.  “What the hell happened in the bathroom?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

“Who ripped the closet door off the wall?”

“Oh; that.  I did that.”  He stood there waiting for further explanation so I told him, “I couldn’t breathe in there today while I was cleaning out the closet.  You’ll have to replace the door with some kind of sliding door, something that’s easier to maneuver in that tiny space.”

He stood there for a few moments staring at me in disbelief, finally let out a laugh, turned on his heel and walked out of the room.

Over the years, I stopped noticing the gaping hole in the bathroom closet. I hung a tension bar across the top and draped a printed sheet over it for a while.  I replaced the sheet with a flowered shower curtain and then a pretty lace curtain.  After a while I gave up trying to hide the mess and left the contents of the closet exposed, in hopes that my husband would finally give in and replace the door.

But as the years went by, it became a ridiculous idea to replace the bathroom closet door when the entire bathroom needed to be gutted and replaced. The fake Formica back splash around the sink was warped and leaking, wallpaper was peeling, tiles were cracking and the toilet seat shifted sideways if you didn’t sit down just right in the center.

We had been apologizing to guests by chuckling, “Don’t mind the bathroom; we’re working on remodeling it,” but after twelve years, I don’t even think our family members believed us.

And then the happy announcement came that our son was getting engaged. And then the unhappy realization that the groom’s mother was supposed to host the engagement party and we were going to have to invite his future in-laws to our house for the party and they were inevitably going to have to make a trip to the bathroom.

After fretting for weeks about the appearance of the bathroom, I begged my husband, “at least put a door on the bathroom closet!”

“What for?” he asked. 

“I’m embarrassed,” I said. “We’ve been living with this disgusting bathroom for years. These people have a beautiful home in Connecticut.  They have money. They’ll come here and see this cramped little house and that tiny horrible bathroom with splinters sticking out of the bathroom closet and they’ll think we don’t even have money for a closet door.”

“Good!” he said with a big smile on his face. “Then they won’t ask us to chip in for the wedding.”

And they didn’t.