Zen and the Art of Bathroom Maintenance

Things change as a person grows older. As time for leisure increases, so does one's ability to make scientific observations while seated in the bathroom. For instance. One can always measure the passing of time by the rate of  toilet paper use. And at our house, the roll is almost always empty.

I'm married to a man whose small family was very generous with their toilet paper. I have six siblings, so my parents allowed about four sheets per bathroom experience. Now that I'm older and richer, I still can't break that parsimonious habit.

My husband acts like the stuff grows on trees. No, honey, it was a tree. He uses a half roll every time, like he's cleaning up battery acid. It's the little things, folks, than creates strained moments between married people.

With all our concern over international politics and that bizarre behavior to the South of us, it's this bathroom pettiness that preoccupies me. Let's be honest. The bathroom has become, for many, a kind of mini-sanctuary. 'No, honey,' I shout gleefully from my perch, 'I can't answer the phone! I'm in the bathroom! No, I don't know where your reading glasses are!' (Lie...I'm wearing them.) So when my sanctuary is disturbed by minor irritations, it kind of ruins the whole, serene, fung shui-ness of it. I'm not sure if my husband notices the empty roll and waits for me to fill it, or if it magically un-spools before I enter the room. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it really happen?


Then, there's the other bathroom irritant: magazine postcards. You know those little rectangles of paper that fall from every magazine you open? They have the address of the publisher on them, and say things like, 'Mail in to subscribe!' You hold it in your hand and mutter to yourself, 'But... I'm already a subscriber.' Oh, foolish bathroom magazine reader. They don't care.

What if you're reading for free at the library? Well, they want you to mail the thing in and get your own subscription. Which you won't do, because you want to read for free. To paraphrase either Confucius or Eleanor Rosevelt, 'It is better to light these cards on fire than to sit and curse the darkness.'

Worse still are the magazines that staple those suckers into the spine. They're made of heavy paper and when you try to tear them out, the magazine cover slides off. These petty annoyances take their toll. I picture them as a tiny creature with a hammer and a very small chisel. Every time I see the empty toilet paper roll, or the bathroom floor littered with magazine postcards, the creature taps the chisel against my flesh and bone and, as the song lyric suggests, 'Takes another little piece of my heart.'

This is why a person should meditate and do yoga. While the toilet paper and magazine card stuff still happens, it's put firmly into place by the relaxed zen-like attitude of the practitioner. I, on the other hand, want to start a change.org campaign over it. Or form a resistance group. Whichever one allows the most shouting. It will be a paperless movement. Email only, unless we all decide to drive to Ottawa and present our concerns.

To the Walrus magazine, and Macleans, to Oprah, Writer's Digest and the United Church Observer, here is your first notice. Don't make me come down there and start throwing things. As you know, I have the time to do it and my fuse is shortening. And thanks to you all, I have the makings of a really good bonfire.