My mom and I have this running joke about the bathrooms in my house. First, let me digress. Over the last couple of years, we’ve remodeled our entire home. With the exception of the tile, J-Fed pretty much did all of the work himself. And he did a hell of a job if I don’t say so myself. But there is something Fun House-esque about it that I didn’t notice until my mom pointed it out one day.
“I have a question,” said the quintessential nag. Everything I knew about nag I learned from her. And since she was always around, poor J-Fed had double the pleasure. They had a love hate relationship. She loved him; he hated her. One might think because of her constant nagging, I might be more apathetic to dear J-Fed for what I put him through. But nah.
“What is it Mother?” I responded.
“Why are all of the handles in your bathrooms backwards?” she asked, pointing to the toilet and then the sink.
I was completely miffed. She was right. To flush the toilet, you had to pull the handle up, not down. Instead of turning the handles on the faucet outwards, they went inwards. And it wasn’t just one bathroom but both. And not just the sink and the toilet, but the shower as well. To get hot water, you had to turn the handle right where it was marked C, and to get cold water you had to turn it to the left marked H. Oh. My. God.
She was right. My bathroom was ass backwards, and I’d never even noticed it. He had intentionally done all of the handles in the opposite direction. Was he trying to confuse me? Or maybe he was trying to scald me.
“I thought that’s how they’re supposed to be,” I said with a hint of dismay.
“Um, no,” she refuted.
“Maybe it’s a French thing,” I reasoned.
“Well, he’s not French nor has he ever been to France,” she pointed out.
I sighed. All of this time, I wondered why our guests always left the bathroom looking completely puzzled. Now, it was all making sense. They couldn’t figure out how to flush the toilet OR wash their hands. Holy crap. And what about the poor woman who cleaned my house? It was amazing anything got done with this kind of system. And what about our daughter, she was going to grow up with a jaded perception of bathroom fixtures.
I thought about not saying anything to him about it, but the temptation was too great to resist.
“Were you aware that all of the handles on our bathroom stuff are on backwards?” I demanded an answer.
“Of course,” he replied nonchalantly.
“Why?” I asked incredulously.
“I wanted to be different. I think it’s sophisticated that way,” he said.
“Let me get this straight. You intentionally made all of the handles in our bathrooms go the wrong way because you think it's sophisticated?” I was stunned.
“Yes, it makes a statement,” he said before giving me a silent dismissal and going back to watching videos on YouTube. For once, I was speechless. J-Fed never ceased to amaze me.
The next morning, I was still a bit shellshocked about the whole bathroom thing as I stepped into the shower. And then it happened. I went to turn on the water and the brushed nickel handle fell off of the wall and onto the shower floor. I had no other choice but to laugh.
It just went to show things can always be worse.