Dad's Bathroom

The gods of interior design are wise

There’s a bathroom attached to my office in the basement that no one uses but me. The rest of my family could use it if they wanted, but they don’t. The floor of my bathroom - dad’s bathroom - is concrete, and though I put rugs down and make it quite nice it’s still quite cold. I swear I can nearly see my breath on winter mornings as I jump in the shower. Maybe not, but it feels like it. The toilet seat is like a steel bench in December. That one’s real. The water pressure could melt your skin off when cranked to hottest. That one’s nice but dangerous. Three of the walls are drywall, one is cinder block. There’s a window right above the sink that looks out under a bush in the backyard. I can hear the kids out there in the summers, in the afternoon the light breaks through the brush and the grass and a few golden slivers fall down into dad’s bathroom.

Every kid knows dad’s bathroom and they are all the same. They are all, basically, exactly like mine which is essentially the platonic ideal of dad’s bathroom.

It works but it is uninviting. Dad’s bathroom is not luxurious. If it was it might attract people. If it was warm and new, your wife would use it. If it was easy to use, the kids would swarm it. Dad’s bathroom is inhospitable and rather unpleasant and it’s primarily this fact that keeps it quiet and all is right.

Dad’s bathroom is often nautical themed. Why? It just has to be, Not all dads are sailors; most aren’t; I’m not. But dad’s bathroom has a sailing theme. A big framed photo of a sailboat is the perfect thing for the wall facing the shower. My friend’s dad had a bathroom and there were always old crinkly sailing magazines on a wicker chair in the corner. I’m not sure why I get it but I do get it. Maybe it’s because I’m a dad and some sort of transformation occurs when it comes to interior design and wretched bathrooms once you hold your first child in your arms.