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When I was growing up, the bathroom was the great talking space. It was a small rabbit hole, if you will, where mother and daughter shared secrets, talked about the important issues, and simply got away from the men. For seventeen years, my mother took a bath every night after dinner. And for seventeen years, I sat across from her on the toilet, sometimes of my own free will, and sometimes because I had been summoned. I can still recall the cadence in her voice, echoing down the living room as she would call out to me from her bathroom turned sauna. "Hey, Nichoooole," she would begin. If let's say I was doing something important, like watching TV, I would sometimes echo back "Whaaaat?". Of course she would always respond back with some question, but this time in a much lower voice, ensuring that I could not hear her, and would be forced to give up my important task and trudge down the hall into her sanctuary.

"Yes?" I would ask.

"Ummm, I wanted to ask you something," she would reply. Translation: this was going to take a while, so you may as well get comfy.

After sighing, and taking my place on the toilet, I would ask yet again "What?"

Don't be fooled into thinking that we were about to have a deep mother-daughter talk. Many times this was followed up with something like "What day is your English test?" or "What do you think we ought to have for supper tomorrow?" Not that this was the real topic she wanted to discuss. This was simply her way of breaking the ice, hoping that I would have some juicy bit of information to share with her.

If by chance I really wanted to watch TV instead of bond with my mother that night, I would answer her question, and then stand up and ask curtly, "Is that all?" This was my way of giving her an opportunity to ask another question that, obviously in her opinion, was of life and death importance, while making her aware that I personally felt like I had something better to do with my time.

Sometimes she would respond by giving me this blank face... you know the type, as if she were perfectly innocent and unaware that she had interrupted me, and then say "Oh, yeah, that was all. What are you doing?" The only way to convert this tactical move into a win for me was by walking toward the door, and not answering until my hand was already on the doorknob. Then in a perfectly timed act that took fifteen years to perfect, I would reply while looking her straight in the eye for a split second, and then quickly get out of the room and close the door behind me.

My family used to joke that my mother didn't know how to bathe alone, and I swore that I would not be one of those mothers. Since I take showers in the morning long before my son is awake, I have been partly successful. However, I do find myself many evenings, as my son is closed up in the bathroom taking a shower, or doing whatever it is teenage boys do in the bathroom for two hours every night, rapping on the door gently to announce my presence, before standing on the other side of it, asking my son about his day.

Learn more about this author, Nichole Nash.
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