Bathroom Therapy

 

“For marriage to be a success, every woman and every man should have her and his own bathroom.”

-Catherine Zeta Jones

“There is a jungle-cat in the bathroom!”

-The Hangover

Sharing a bathroom is never a fun experience, and when you get to college, getting up close and THAT personal is not really on your list of things to do. But guess what? Most of us do end up getting way too much information. When I got to school I was definitely hoping for a suite style room, which meant that I would only be forced to share gross habits with my roommate and two other girls. Lo and behold, I was stuck with a communal bathroom. After the initial panic subsided I spent a lot of time thinking of strategies on how to survive the countless repulsive situations I was sure to encounter and this is what I came up with:

1. Invest some time in learning how to hover. I mean obviously I won’t go into detail, but even when a bathroom is cleaned daily things can get dirty pretty quickly-especially when there are 20 girls using it.

2. Buy a toothbrush cover. Enough said.

3. If you don’t want people to use your products, don’t leave them in the bathroom. As a victim of the “sneaky person who keeps using my stuff when I’m not around,” I fully endorse this rule. While you hope that everyone is respectful and asks to borrow your stuff, there is always that one person you suspect of using your shampoo after you smell it in their hair.

4. Remember that just because someone is cleaning after you, does not give you license to throw caution to the wind and make a mess everywhere. Be kind, and clean your crap up!

5. Deal with the embarrassment early on. This is your home, your roommate’s home, and all your other hallmate’s home and all of you have to use the same potty. So get over it.

If you get stuck sharing a bathroom with other people, it’s not the end of the world! Not all sharing experiences are made for Hollywood Horror movies.