I hate it when my husband goes to the bathroom.
Being intimately familiar with the processes of urination and defecation both through personal experience and teaching others (specifically my children), it’s safe to say with a degree of credibility that I know exactly how long an efficient use of toilet time takes.
I’m just wondering what exactly is going on in there.
I know it’s not anything perverse because he takes magazines in there with him. Magazines like Newsweek, the Economist, or Fortune. I mean, it could be nefarious, but that would be weirdness on a whole other level.
As the person who stays home with these kids all the day, I don’t even get to go to the bathroom BY MYSELF much less for twenty minutes. I mean, here I am going to the bathroom prison style, and my husband gets to take almost half the amount of time as it takes for a massage at a spa?
On an even more personal and TMI note, I can’t imagine sitting ANYWHERE with my pants around my ankles for more than five minutes. How is that comfortable? Why aren’t your legs asleep? Can you even feel your butt anymore?!!
This is not fair.
This is not right.
So, sorry, dudes. But… NO MORE.
If you have kids, you cannot disappear into the bathroom for twenty minutes.
I’m thinking about instituting a hall pass like we had in school.
Parameters for the administration of said hall pass will only occur if the following circumstances are met:
- The children have JUST started watching television and will not bother me at all while you’re in the bathroom.
- You have been home for more than an hour.
- You can only take one magazine with you and it can’t be The Economist because one article takes, like, twenty minutes to read. The first read through is just understanding the words, second reading of the same article is needed to understand the concept behind the words, and third reading results in a twenty minute lament about why your parents didn’t just shell out the big bucks for the SAT prep course so you, too, could have gone to Harvard and ended up writing articles that required a minimum of three readings.
- Your wife must either be out of the house or be busy doing something fun that will distract her from noticing that you are taking forty five minutes to do something that only takes three.
It could work, right?
I mean, what’s the worse that could happen? It’s not like they don’t have prescriptions for IBS.
About Faiqa Khan
Sometimes I think he has snacks in there.
Twitter Name: DTKMMeLookCrazy
Know what? I think you may be right.
Twitter Name: Faiqa
You need to do some pre-emptive BMs. I have fabulous assvice. When your husband gets in the door, instead of saying “hello”, say “watch the kids, I’ve gotta go to the bathroom”, then YOU go take your turn, woman. But BE READY. I bought a little shelf for over my toilet where I keep books of short stories. It is quite fabulous. Also, I like to have a nice smelling candle burning, and I keep a fluffy towel nearby so my legs don’t get cold. Cause after a while, he will come a knockin’. I just thrown down the towel & hold up the peace sign, if you know what I mean. That keeps him away for another 20. What goes around, comes around.
Twitter Name: tubaville
This is BRILLIANT. Totally doing this.
Twitter Name: Faiqa
LMAO! This is US at our house!! My husband takes his phone in there and downloads music, plays xbox live on it, crazy stuff like that! I get a clapping audience when I go in there (we are potty training our 2 year old, so he claps at all bathroom behavior). I asked him how his legs don’t go numb, and he says it’s skill…
“It’s skill” made me laugh out loud.
Twitter Name: Faiqa
I can’t even come near the bathroom when my husband’s in there dropping a deuce. He says it makes the “turtle head” go back in it’s “shell.” The turtle is always very slow.
Twitter Name: robinplemmons
You are so freaking gross, Robin. I love it.
Twitter Name: Faiqa
My husband immediately retreats to the bathroom when he arrives home. When the kids are already in bed (usually) it doesn’t bother me at all, but if they are still awake I actually feel rage boiling inside of me.
I too never go to the restroom without at least the baby and the dog and most often one question, complaint or just general comment from both of my sons. I think my body has actually trained itself for the process to take less than 4 minutes in an attempt to minimize the number of people invovled. How does he get to have all that private time to do something that I can do so quickly?
Totally agree with you and really going to implement those rules. :)
Twitter Name: themommytherapy
I love the idea of the first commenter saying that we should go to the bathroom as soon as they get home and take the same amount of time. Also, I identify intensely with the words “boiling rage.”
Twitter Name: Faiqa
Well said!
I can poop in under 2 min (being a parent for 18 years will do that to a woman.) Meanwhile Hub’s spends FOREVER in there. Is it really so lovely sitting in that STINKY room reading? Really?
Add to that I take a shower in less than 10 minutes and his baths are at least a half hour. Sometimes I wonder if he is hiding from us.
I don’t wonder. I KNOW HE’S HIDING FROM US.
Twitter Name: Faiqa
Yes… he prolly is hiding from us as well! I get soooooooo mad at this! Mine takes the newspaper in there! And we all know how long that takes.
Ah, the old bathroom escape from parenting trick. (Tell no one, I have been known to do it myself, except I had to wait till the kids were older.)
Put some sort of zapper on the seat to go off after four minutes, he’ll soon quicken up the process.
Twitter Name: penbleth
Do they sell those on Amazon? ::off to search::
Twitter Name: Faiqa
Given that every man’s home is his castle, he’s obviously exercising his right to sit on his throne, issuing fantasy proclamations to an audience of one.
Twitter Name: lceel
Yes, well proclamations of any sort would certainly be fantasy on his part. ;)
Twitter Name: Faiqa
I too used to be bothered by this behavior. But no more. Now I just take my turn, too. I take my cell phone and set the timer for whatever amount of time he took last time and sit on the floor by the sink and read. I have a fluffy rug and a book and the peace and quiet that only a locked bathroom door can provide.
Not only does this get me a little quiet time, but it has amazingly sped up his bathroom time. When he knows that 45 minutes now means 45 minutes of being in charge later, it’s amazing how quickly he can get done.
Twitter Name: ladyjess78
This is a fantastic idea, and I’m sort of in awe of the fact that I hadn’t already thought of doing this.
Twitter Name: Faiqa
It’s a man thing for sure. Women are too damn busy. In, out on your way…
Twitter Name: msmegan
Exactly… but I like these ideas of taking in scented candles up there in the comments… I may start taking more time myself.
Twitter Name: Faiqa
I have been wanting to write this exact post (replace magazines with his Droid or “Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader” but my husband would probably never speak to me again. A common question from my 7 year-old is “Mommy, why does it take Daddy so long to go to the bathroom?” I wish to God I knew, son. Steam is usually coming out of my ears by the time he’s done! I haven’t gone to the bathroom with the door closed in 7 years much less for 20 minutes! SHEEEEESH!
Twitter Name: Jenny Rapson
If it makes you feel better (about not writing the post) my husband read it this morning, and I said, “Isn’t it funny?!” His response? “Not.really.::long silence::”
I took one for the team, girls. Y’all owe me. ;-)
Twitter Name: Faiqa
I am reminded of the Louis C.K. standup routine where he talks about sitting on the pot until his legs go numb, and find it hauntingly familiar (and mildly alarming from a neurological standpoint)! LOL! Now I just send my two-year-old in with him…she is potty training and fascinated with all things toilet. It is amazing how that speeds things up and takes a load off of me at the same time! :))) If she goes with him, he can stay in there all day as far as I’m concerned…hehehe!
prison style, i LOVE how you described that! lol
Twitter Name: Liza_Rae
I would gladly let my husband take all the time in the world to poop if he would stop giving me the play by play about his ‘bathroom activites’ after the fact. I swear, that man is 30 going on 13.
Twitter Name: LoLately
good thing we aren’t married…i am not like your normal average woman
Twitter Name: hellohahanarf
Reasons I’m Jealous of My Husband :
1) He can go poop for as long as he wants without little fingers being shoved under the door.
2) He can take a shower every day and almost always without an audience.
3) He is blind to the five OVERFLOWING laundry baskets lining the wall in our bedroom.
4) He gets a chance to relax before he goes to bed AND when he wakes up. (He works nights so he’s gone during the bedtime temper tantrums and after Annabeth “tucks him in” he has time to rest and relax before going to sleep in the mornings.)
I’m about to start a rebellion.
Twitter Name: s_CSR
WORD.
Twitter Name: totallygross
Prison style. That’s the exact words I used to complain to my husband about my bathroom privileges! He finally understood my requirements for a shower when I told him that unless there was a lightning storm or the house was on fire I did NOT want to be disturbed!!
….I also have bribed my oldest with one M&M for every time she can go to the bathroom door an knock and ask her daddy a question.
I had a hard time keeping a straight face with that game.
my ex actually tried to take his lap top into the bathroom to watch a movie. he didnt. i guess the look of are you crazy, changed his mind. i was just shocked he even came up with the idea and thought it was a good one.
Not only am I sending this ‘as a message instead’ to my hubby, I am sharing it on my wall for all the FB world to see. I feel it’s necessary to get the formentioned potty rules ‘out there.’
‘No More!’ Agreed.