The Bathroom Schedule

The Bathroom Schedule 

As a kid… one of 11... it was interesting to say the least. My Mom was a real manager, a micro manager.

The bathroom is one of the schedules that was the hardest for me. Being #10 of 11 meant that I also had a later school start than some of my siblings and more often than not cold water. One bathroom for 11 kids, can you imagine that in today’s world? We had a time schedule for our showers and bathroom time. 4 minutes was all we had. Our hair and makeup was done in our rooms (my Dad even took all electrical sockets out of the bathroom) . A teeth brushing festival before we left for school was part of the routine. Seriously, imagine 11 kids sharing 2 sinks, 1 toilet and a shower. We learned to work together, to respect a schedule, to be free, to be able to cover up, and to deal with cold showers.

If we wanted to sit on the toilet for a longer amount of time we had a habit of throwing a towel over our legs for a bit a privacy because who knows, someone might want to enter. Well, one of my sisters is real character (and still is today). One day she decided to introduce her friend to my older brother (her friend thought my brother was cute). My sister kind of forgot that other people might find our bathroom sharing strange. She strolled into the bathroom and said, “ Hey Stu this is Dalean, my friend.” Needless to say her friend turned bright red and my brother was pretty upset. That was us, a big family, sharing in life and forgetting that others didn’t live that way.