Whenever someone learns that I am the last of seven children and the only boy raised by a single mother,  I can anticipate their next question.  What was it like growing up in a house full of women? 

What I’d really like to say is that women take forever to get ready and hog bathrooms. I know it’s a stereotype and generally I am against stereotypes, especially the sexist ones, but growing up with my mother, six sisters, and their assorted girlfriends in the house, I think I have some street cred.  Sure, our house had three bathrooms, but in my experience, they were hard to get into.

“Wait.  I am putting on my makeup!” someone would yell as I slowly opened a bathroom door. It was soon slammed shut and locked for good measure. Why they didn’t lock it in the first place is another matter. One down two to go. To the master bath.  Unfortunately, to get into that one required entry into the master bedroom which was always a problem.  Someone was always in some stage of dressing or undressing in front of the largest mirror in the house.  Usually it was Patti, my second oldest sister.  More than once, I’d opened that door only to see a towel on Patti’s head and then hear the scream. “Ahh...Frankie, I’m getting dressed!” I saw her naked so many times, that I eventually I didn’t flinch, but just closed the door quickly. It seemed comical to me that she had a towel on her head but nothing on her body.  How was her hair going to get dry when she had it wrapped in a towel?  Why didn’t she use two towels -- one for her head and one for her body? These were questions that I thought but knew that I couldn’t actually ask.  

I’d try the downstairs bathroom, but I really didn’t want to because it was, well, downstairs.  Strange things lurked down there.   Most likely, Chrissy or Peggy would be in that bathroom anyway.  Probably Chrissy.  Peggy was more of a tomboy so she claimed less bathroom time than the others.  If I’d find one miraculously empty,  someone would usually yell “Put the seat up!”  I didn’t need the reminder.  I’d learned early on after potty training that I’d better do that. What could be worse than hearing the scream of a woman sitting down on a toilet without a seat?  And why did they wait until the very last moment to go which caused them to be in such a hurry that they didn’t notice that the seat was up?  Couldn’t we all take responsibility for moving the seat appropriately for what we were doing and leave the seat in the down and covered position for the next user?  More unspoken questions. I took the easy route and just put the damn seat up when I went and down when I was done, always with the lid closed.  They hardly ever closed the lid, not that I’m bitter or anything.  I’m just saying.

I speak to at least one of my sisters every day.  Today, I spoke to both Toni and Peggy.  Yesterday, I talked to Susan three times. I know their phone numbers by heart.  Chrissy actually quizzed me on her number once when I went a long stretch without calling. I love them.  Can’t imagine my life without them, but I sure am glad that I don’t have to share a bathroom with them any longer, or wait for them to get ready for church, or God forbid go clothes shopping with them.  Some things in life are best left as childhood memories. So, my standard answer to the recurring question of what is was like is usually “interesting and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”