Man's Last Great Sanctuary

I figured it out the other morning in the shower.

Someone somewhere once asserted that the last safe haven for the modern male was the toilet. If it was Jeff Foxworthy, and I think it might have been Jeff Foxworthy, you can stop reading now, because I apologize. I don't remember. Perhaps it was another stand-up "comic," though Foxworthy is more of a walking, game-show-hosting Shakesperean tragedy than a great comedian in the vein of Bill Engvall or Ron White or America's greatest stand-up comic, Larry the Cable Guy. Look, okay, I don't fucking know who said that, so find out for yourself. I am onto something here.

Having been party to several experiences of being interrupted while...heh...reading in the bathroom, I decree that the toilet is no longer safe, and that man's last, best hope, as some dude with Marfan Syndrome once said...is the shower. And honestly, I learned this from my mother. Maybe it has to do with being fully clothed more often than not when you're in the bathroom that people sense the fleeting possibility that their pressing business might be enough to interrupt an intimate and solitary moment. Should we strip down to nothing every time it's required so that we aren't defecating, interrupted? Oh Angelina, don't adopt any more babies from East Timor.

When I was a kid, I often had questions for my mom that coincided with when she was in the shower. This is where it all came together for me, a few days go, after twentysomething years. Whenever I asked my mom something and she was in the shower, I would yell through the door. Now, our house didn't have any showers inside bank vaults or panic rooms, so Forrest Whitaker never had trouble robbing us every leap year. What I'm getting at is that the door and shower curtain separating myself and my mother weren't that thick. Yet it seemed like every time I came to my mom with a matter of Threat Level: Midnight importance, she acted like she was inside of a roaring jet engine. Maybe she couldn't hear me, I don't know, but slick move on her part: enforcing the shower as the last great sanctuary. Where else would I have been able to figure this out?

Figure what out?

I thought this was about pooping and Jodie Foster avoiding burglars?

Huh?

Bear with me as a I change gears. Again, when I was a kid, I never understood why adults loved to sit around and talk all day and all night. Shouldn't they have been running around until they passed out, or playing videogames, or watching hours and hours of TV? That's what I thought, at least. But then again children are stupid.

The primary purpose of adulthood is to tell old stories, and correct me if I'm wrong. When I'm sitting in a bar, or talking on the phone, or eating lunch at work, or anything else practically, I find myself spinning yarns about past occurences to people who weren't around to hear about them firsthand. It's because the world is getting older and people who were once together have grown apart, so the majority of social interaction is bringing everyone up to speed. This is not to say that I find this bothersome, although I do when hearing rehashed stories or information I've already been given from another source. That's wasteful.

That's what I figured out in the shower.