The Bubble Bath, Part 19

  Editor’s Note: After a mind-expanding experience with an Inversion Table, courtesy of the cutting-edge Bubbles, we retired for the evening, intent on getting some much-needed sleep before we embarked on our last full day in Philly. Turns out we didn’t actually stay in Philly, but more on that as things progress…

  I awoke the next morning, rather refreshed, but clearly a bit behind schedule, as I could hear Bubbles and Terry on the lower floor, banging about and most likely making detailed plans to alter the course of history. These things happen when you leave them without supervision.

  Terry noticed that I was awake, probably due to the horrified wail of despondency I unleashed when I caught sight of myself in a mirror, and he trotted up the stairs. He had an agenda update. “We’re going to eat at IHOP while Bubbles gets a pedicure.”

  This was news. Neither of these options had been on the table when I laid my weary head to rest. I immediately sensed that this change of plans had something to do with Bubbles consuming the high-octane coffee that she insists on brewing, because one sip of that mess can make you see Napoleon Bonaparte hiding behind a potted fichus tree.

  I leisurely rolled over in the bed, since I was in one of those moods where you just want to remain wrapped up in comfy bed linens, and stare at the ceiling for hours, choosing a life of non-productivity. Okay, I’m always in that mood. But anyway. “Really? So I have to get dressed?”

  “Yep. Jump in the shower and we’ll go.” He exited stage left and returned to giggling and plotting with Bubbles.

  I flopped onto my back. Some day, I promised myself, I would find a career where I never had to leave the bed but did not involve intimate relations with paying customers. I’m sure that type of job is out there, I just haven’t searched the Internet enough. Because that’s hard to do when you don’t want to get out of bed.

  After several more minutes of making dramatic sighs that no one was listening to, I hauled my ass out of bed and wandered into Bubbles’ bathroom to attend to things.

  Now, I haven’t mentioned it as of yet, but there’s a certain feature about Bubbles’ comfort station that I must now address. Namely, the door to this chamber of extremely personal activity. Because there really isn’t one.

  Oh sure, there’s been an attempt to ensure privacy. But this attempt is basically a folding door that doesn’t quite slip into place in a satisfactory manner. A folding door. Not a robust, solid door that one can slam shut and lock out unwelcome eyes, ears and random sexual deviants. Nope, we have a structurally-suspect bit of folding wood that does little to instill a sense of personal freedom and relaxation.

  Now, due to the unique layout of Bubbles’ abode, I fully understand why someone chose to install a folding door at some point in the history of the dwelling. The bathroom is located in a slightly-odd manner, abutting a fairly narrow walkway leading to the master suite. If a real door had been utilized, and you weren’t paying attention as you exited the privacy chamber, you could easily knock an unsuspecting visitor over the railing of the walkway. They would then plummet to the lower floor, creating an unsavory, bloody mess that might make people avoid consuming the tasty hors d’oeuvres you had spent hours preparing for the dinner party.

  This simply wouldn’t do. Ergo, the folding door, which was less likely to cause body displacement and humans falling from the sky, disrupting otherwise benign after-dinner conversation.

  However, the folding door did not prove a soothing balm to someone like me, who has issues with anyone overhearing my attempts at recycling. I don’t want people to be aware of my doing that. I want them to think that I have had this activity outsourced, and that someone in another country is doing Number Two for me. That’s just my thing.

  In essence, because of the folding door, I basically had not contributed to the Circle of Life since we arrived in Philly. Couldn’t do it. People could hear, and thus things slammed shut. I would try, of course, but no one on the assembly line was willing to cooperate, and union stewards were filing grievances about the unsatisfactory working conditions.

  Now, I could tinkle with complete freedom, no issues there. But that leads us to yet another complicating factor for this morning in question. The previous night, Terry and Bubbles had slipped off to bed a bit before I did. I had stayed up, working on yet another blog post, because that’s what I do with half my life. I eventually reached a stopping point and decided to join my slumbering family.

  But first, before slipping into bed, I needed to release the last bit of beer I had consumed. So I slipped into the facilities, did my thing, and then tried to exit the comfort station.

  The door was stuck.

  What the hell?

  I jiggled and wiggled the thing, trying to be discreet because the house was now silent and people were in dreamland. But I soon surmised that my subtle escape attempt was getting nowhere.

  Frustrated, I gave the door an especially strenuous tug.

  And the door slipped out of the sliding track thing and was only still standing up because I was holding the knob in my hand.

  I took a deep breath. Things weren’t that bad, all I had to do was get the door back into the track, and then run like hell. But that wasn’t in the cards. No matter what I did or tried, the freaking door would not go back in the track. I pushed and pulled and cussed. Nothing. And I was really making a lot of racket. At some point, Bubbles or Terry was bound to wake up, firmly convinced that Satan was in the bathroom and ready to take our lives.

  So I finally gave up. And left the folded door propped against the door jamb. Really nice of me, right? Very considerate. But what was I supposed to do? Wake Bubbles up in the middle of the night, hollering about tearing up her house? That really wasn’t necessary. She’d certainly figure it out in the morning.

  And I went to bed.

  Flash back/forward to the next morning. Bubbles and Terry are downstairs, waiting for me to get my ass moving so we can eat and Bubbles can have her toes pampered. My digestive system is so backed up at this point that I’m waddling. I’m miserable, and I haven’t had any coffee.

  I peek out of the bedroom door.

  The folding door for the bathroom is miraculously back on the track, most likely courtesy of Bubbles, so it’s apparently not the first time said door has proven to be a challenge for drunken idiots. I slipped into the bathroom and very tenderly slid that door closed.

  I almost skipped the morning constitutional, because really, what was the point? Things were not going to happen, not until I was back in Texas, that’s just how things went. But just as I reached to turn on the shower, a telegraphed message was received at company headquarters. Incoming. Incoming NOW.

  Oh?

  Well, then. I could hear Bubbles and Terry, still downstairs, still laughing and running around and apparently occupied. Maybe I could do this. Maybe, for once in my life, I could get this done quickly without all the trauma and straining.

  I assumed the position.

  And yes, we appeared to be on an express track. We had bubbling and gurgling. All systems go.

  So, of course, right at that moment, both Terry and Bubbles decided to thunder up the stairs, laughing and carrying on and hollering for me to hurry the hell up because they were HUNGRY.

  The portal slammed shut.

  Just shoot me now. Please.


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