Listen, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Judd Apatow’s 2012 comedy, This is 40, is a great film. That’s just not something I could do with a clear conscience. It’s over-long, self-indulgent and horrifically smug but, in fairness, it has its moments.
One scene in particular takes up far more space in my mind than it should.
Paul Rudd is sitting on the toilet playing scrabble on his iPad, when his wife (Leslie Mann) opens the door and in true Apatow style, nags him about taking so long. She asks him: “Who takes half an hour to go to the toilet?” To which he replies, “John Goodman.” It’s the best joke in the film, but not the sole reason the scene sticks out in my mind. Paul Rudd is, as you might have guessed, not actually going to the toilet. He’s using the bathroom as a refuge; as a means of escape. He is sitting on the toilet to get a little time away from the kids.
Now, I know Hollywood films require a suspension of disbelief to some degree or another, but this was just too much. When kids are in the house, there is no escape. They will hunt you, and they will find you. Of all the things I took for granted before kids, this is one of the most unexpected. Bathrooms used to be places of quiet contemplation. Now they are the epicentre of chaos.
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The ancient Romans did their business in big communal toilets. They bloody loved it. They’d all sit around having a right old gossip, completely unselfconsciously and seemingly unbothered by the smell. But the world changed, and as we (regrettably) became more ashamed of our bodies, we also became (thankfully) more concerned with matters of hygiene. So the bathroom became the privy, from the Latin privatus, which of course means “private”. You have to admit, it’s very interesting. Bill Bryson’s highly entertaining At Home: A Short History of Private Life has a great chapter on the bathroom, tracing its evolution through antiquity to the modern day, touching on everything from the role of the church to the wonders of plumbing.
My own life now has little to no privacy. I’ll be careful with my choice of words here and spare you any unwanted mental images. Let’s just say as soon as I close the bathroom door, a child magically appears. Maybe even two. They burst through the door because at that exact moment they have to tell me about a snail they found in the garden. Or that they spilled their drink on the couch. Or someone stepped on someone’s foot and it wasn’t an accident.
You have to decide right now whether to finish up as quickly as possible, or flush your dignity down the toilet and waddle out with your pants around your ankles
Even when they don’t physically manifest in front of my eyes, they have an uncanny knack for interrupting. Imagine sitting on the toilet and hearing your child scream in another room. You try to call out but they can’t hear you over their hysterical cries. You now have a few seconds to weigh up the seriousness of the situation. It’s probably nothing, but… what if it’s not? You have to decide right now whether to finish up as quickly as possible, or flush your dignity down the toilet and waddle out with your pants around your ankles and hope the neighbours don’t look through the window at that exact moment. I should apologise – that is most certainly an unwanted mental image.
We don’t lock the bathroom door, and that in itself comes loaded with risk. If the door isn’t fully shut (you have to hear the click), our cat might pay a visit. Our beautiful, insane cat. For some reason she loves the bathroom and, unusually for a cat, doesn’t seem to mind water. This is a dangerous combination.
The second you step out of the shower she’ll dart in after you, happily splashing in the draining water. But if you happen to be on the toilet when she manages to push the door open, you are in for a world of pain. She’ll jump straight up on your shoulders and perch there, which is weird, but fine. You feel like some mad pirate with a cat instead of a parrot. But sometimes she’ll try to go from your shoulders into the toilet itself. This is as upsetting as it sounds. You try to awkwardly reach around and get her off, but then she gets scared and digs her claws in, scraping as you drag her. You scream out in pain and two children magically appear at the door. One of them says, “I have to go to the toilet.” And the other says, “Me too.”
And you think to yourself, “Man, that Judd Apatow is full of sh*t.”