Telephones in the bathroom

Fox

Sun, Jun 25 2017, 3:26 pm

I will 'fess up to being less than diligent about disinfecting my phone on a regular basis. On the other hand, I hardly ever get sick, and I keep reading that too much disinfecting is also not so healthy. So who knows?

As for taking the phone into the bathroom, I will also 'fess up to being a bathroom reader, which now means a phone reader. It's less associated in my mind with elimination and more with being in a small, non-stimulating place. My DD, the behavior therapist, and I were talking about this a few days ago; she said that a lot of people with minor sensory issues like hanging out in the bathroom simply because it's not conducive to sensory overload.

But this thread reminds me of a bizarre story from my youth: I had just become engaged and was visiting my future in-laws for the first time. After a while, I got up and headed toward the bathroom. Everyone started giggling. "Did you tell her yet?" I heard under somebody's breath.

Turns out they'd purchased their house during a very tight housing market, and there weren't a lot of choices. The house had an odd layout and a lot of quirks, but the quirkiest by far was the floor-to-ceiling carpeting in the main floor bathroom along with a telephone installed directly across from the commode.

Now, this was in the 80s, and you didn't just run a wire wherever you wanted a phone. An additional extension cost extra and had to be installed by the phone company. Putting in an extension wasn't a whim. In fact, it was such a big deal that the phone company made you pay a lot to have an extension uninstalled, too. My in-laws were mortified, but they didn't really have the resources for a remodeling job to strip the carpet from the walls and remove the phone.

My FIL just shrugged and said, "Well, we never miss a call!"

Welcome to the family!