Deep ThinkerBy L.E.Wood
Now I know I am not the first person to realize that I do my best thinking whilst sitting on the toilet. That is to say, universally, for a great number of people, the bathroom is the final retreat from the chaos of everyday life. A modern day oasis in a world of nagging partners, raging bosses and accumulating schoolwork, the bathroom offers the one place where you can go and sit down for five minutes and truly relax.
Or, if you’re me, you can go there and really really think about anything that’s in your head. I often find myself obsessing over arguments or conversations I’ve had in the past when I’m on the toilet...you know, the really embarrassing conversations that haunt your through adolescence and into adulthood, maybe an argument with your parent, or a lecturer or even a lover. It was during one such thought I was having on a particularly mild spring day (I remember this because the sun was streaming through the back window, so I naturally had the blinds open. Of course, as it was such a nice day, the window cleaner was out cleaning our back windows, I didn’t realise until I heard his jaunty whistling as I sat perched on the edge of the toilet seat, clutching a magazine on my lap whilst he squiji-mopped soap suds off the window pane). Interesting. Very interesting.
Anyhow, so there I was clutching onto my magazine (the April American version of Seventeen as it so happens), waiting for the window cleaner to finish his business so I could get on with my own, and I’m trying desperately hard not to move so he doesn’t notice I am there. (At this point I am forced to say that less-comically the window pane is frosted, not clear, so it’s not always that easy to see into…unless you’re really looking hard or have something hard to look at). After about three minutes or so he moved onto the next window pane along the back of the house, (I later became peeved that he spent so little time actually cleaning our windows instead of lighting his pipe…although I am forced to admit, I have come to expect no more of most men as it seems everything is done quickly.) Not only that, but there were huge smudge marks where he had missed the glass with his sponge, and a film of dust around the woodwork where his scraper wouldn’t reach which he had just left.
I made a mental note to inform my parents of our window cleaner’s ‘inadequacy’ and relaxed a little into my own task ahead. I had had a particularly difficult conversation with my best friend a month earlier, which was still unresolved and saw both of us avoiding each other. This was bothering me greatly, and our arguments had started to infiltrate my dreams at nighttime, so I was mentally preparing myself for another round of bitch-wars 2003. In my daydream, my friend was knocking me for six whilst I had barely been able to retort back at all. I was becoming increasingly stressed in my little oasis, mentally, said friend had me on the ropes and was verbally lashing me amongst a flurry of slanderous insults and swearwords.
I could take it no longer; I clenched my jaw and bit down hard, grinding teeth as much as I could. My face flushed red with the effort as my nose scrunched up and I gripped the sides of the toilet seat with vice like fingers and then, and then… *splat*.
I had been concentrating so much, I had burst a blood vessel in my nose. Red blood cascaded down my nostril and pooled above my top lip, a crimson lake of rusty fluid as I fumbled clumsily for the roll of toilet paper that was suspended on the wall next to me.
Now I’m not really sure what the moral of this story is. Maybe it’s that you shouldn’t leave your bathroom blinds open for strangers to see into, or maybe it’s that you shouldn’t think too hard when you’re on the toilet. Either way, I never did resolve that argument.
© L.E.Wood |