Michael D. Davis.

It could be two in the afternoon or two in the morning, eight am, noon, six, ten, or 4:47 Christmas morning. The time doesn’t matter. Whatever time it is, someone will be in the bathroom.

For almost thirty long years now, I have lived in the same house with the same three other people with only one bathroom. A single bathroom. That’s it. I have seen some things. Some bad things. I have seen my old man on the turlet a traumatic number of times. And the fact is, once is too many.

It is the most used room in the house. The most fought over room, the most cursed at room, the most damaged and slapped back together room. Not only is the sink from the sixties, the shower from the seventies, and the toilet from the eighties. Not only are the walls covered in a linoleum with a psychotic, mindbending, faded design that will either have you hallucinating or give you a headache, but it is also the smallest room in the house.

Every single person in the house has danced or doubled over in the kitchen trying to hold in the inevitable. As a moron kid, I had another option. If I had to go real bad and someone was in the bathroom, I would run out the front door, around the house to the back in a corner, and water the weeds. That, however, became less and less of an option as I grew, of course. A six-year-old taking a whiz behind his house is frowned upon, but accepted. A 30-year-old taking a whiz behind his house is a quick call to the cops.

The only option you hope for when it’s an emergency, and you know someone is in the bathroom, is that they are in the shower. You dance your way to the door, you hear the running water of the shower, you knock, you barge in, kick the person’s clothes that are piled on the floor, and answer nature’s call. The real bit of controversy that comes with this option is talking. I mean, it can be awkward. The room is full of steam, you’re trying to hurry, but you’re there, so you throw out a, “How’s your day going?” To the person in the shower. It’s a 50/50 percent chance that this bit of stilted bathroom banter will be received well. Sometimes the answer to the question is genuine, and you have a brief, lovely conversation. Other times it’s met with a series of expletives. It’s a toss-up.

The real kick to the head, pee your pants part of this whole situation is the north room. A room filled with DVDs, appliances, art, and other bits of acquired junk. A room with bare drywall. A room that was meant to be a second bathroom when we added onto the house more than twenty years ago. Why is it not a bathroom, you ask? Well, I DON’T KNOW.

The fact is that one of my Father’s biggest flaws is that he finishes little of what he started. The whole north side of the house is undone. The floors are plywood, with little soft spots you have to avoid. Most of the walls are just drywall, so you can sit and count how many screws you see. And the doors are mainly makeshift, online bought, break after a week, doors.

At one point, my Father got it in his mind to put up trim around the outside of one door frame. Now, you have to be careful walking through that door, as the trim is on, but the little nails he used are still sticking out half an inch. So, if you’re not careful, you can rip a shirt or slice an arm. And the nails have been sticking out like that for two decades now.

So, if you see me behind my house, in a corner, facing the wall, I’m just watering the weeds. I mean, it’s doubtful I’ll do that, but then again, as I write this, I have to pee, and guess what, someone’s in the bathroom.