How Well Do You Know Your Best Friend?

Really well when you share a room with a bathroom WITHOUT A DOOR! In fact, a bathroom with ONLY ONE WALL! Yep. Toilet and sink behind half a wall and a flimsy rice paper blind. Oprah and Dr. Oz are always talking about the perfect “poop” but trust me, they’d be worrying about more than that in this room!

Thelma and Louise Fetish
Every summer, my best buddy Maryann and I leave the happy hubbies at home and plan an overnight escape to worlds unknown. So Maryann reserved a room for us at a quaint little bed and breakfast just outside of Bayfield, ON.
“Nope. Can’t do it. No room service.”
“Come on,” she whines, “it’s something different.”
Different is hardly the adjective I would have chosen to describe this little adventure.

On The Road Again
We’re arguing with the GPS and we drive right past the place.
“I think we missed it,” Maryann says as she pulls her “wanna-be cop in a high speed chase” u-turn and speeds back down the highway.
“Should have listened to the GPS,” I say, wiping the splattered tea from my white t-shirt.
“Hard to do when the directions are in CANTONESE!”
“Where’s your sense of humour?”
“There it is!” she says frantically waving her finger towards my window.
“Drive on by girlfriend. That’s not it.”
She whips the truck into the driveway. I’m sure I can see Norman Bates in the attic window.
“It’s awesome. We’ve got the whole attic to ourselves.”
Really? Who knew.

Initiation to the Bed and Breakfast Experience
The attic awaits us as we drag our luggage up the four-inch wide wooden steps that would make climbing Mount Everest seem like a walk in the park. My ankle is wrapped in a bandage from a previous injury and the pain is killing me.
“I can’t carry my suitcase anymore.”
“Why not?”
“My ankle’s too sore.”
She’s ignoring me.
“Be the man Maryann and carry my suitcase.”
Lucky for me, I’m in front of her or I’m sure her bag would have done serious damage to my head.
“Leave it. Just get up there.”
The room is quite charming. Looking around the place I can appreciate the funky slanted ceilings and awesome hard wood floors.
Until I see it.

Houston We Have a Problem
“My God the bathroom is right out in the open!” My voice is so shrill it could break glass.
”Where?”
“There! How are we supposed to go?”
“It’s behind a partition. Who cares?”
The toilet, sink and shower are lined up against one wall with nothing in front and to the right is a half-wall with a parchment roll up blind hanging from the ceiling. She starts unpacking her stuff.
“How can you be so calm about this?”
“About what?”
“What do you mean what? The bathroom.”
She shrugs. “At least it’s not an outhouse.”
“Funny ha ha. You’re no Jay Leno, girlfriend.”
Oh God, why did I have that last Timmy’s!
“Stay over there.”
“Where?”
“There.”
“Why?”
“I have to go, so stay over there and don’t come in,” I say pointing to the other side of the room. Oh silly me. Coming in would insinuate that this was a room. Speed is of the essence as I take my seat and peer around the blind to make sure she’s not within earshot. But then it’s not like we’re in a room the size of a football field.
“Turn on the TV!” I shout.
“What?”
“THE TV! TURN IT ON!”
I hear Dr. Phil in the background saying, “So how’s that workin’ for ya’?”
I picture myself as his guest. “There are no words, Dr. Phil, no words. There I am sitting on the toilet in the middle of the room. I’ve had dreams like this before you know, the kind you wish you could wake up from.”

A Time for Reflection
But as I sit, an odd sense of empowerment comes over me like I’m Norma Rae or Gloria Steinem making some kind of profound statement about women’s rights or something.
“You done yet?”
“Yes,” I reply, calmly emerging from behind the blind. “You going?”
“No. I’ll go at the restaurant.”

Privacy. It’s so overrated.