Inspired by this thread about talking on the phone while doing ones business, I thought about reading material.
My father was horrible about this. He would take the morning paper in there and be gone for an hour, I swear. I have seem to adopt this practice as I have gotten older. I do enjoy a good magazine or maybe the sports section while waiting for nature to take its course. Anyone else prefer a good read while sitting on the throne?
I wonder if libraries have a problem with people trying to take their books into the bathrooms to read.
It’s the funniest thing. I swear I have a Pavlov’s dog kind of reaction whenever I go into a bookstore. I start reading, and I have to poop! It’s annoying to say the least.
Reading in the bathroom is standard in our house.
Reading is standard in our house too. I can’t imagine going to the bathroom without a book in hand, unless I need to be standing
Glad to see that I am not alone… It drives my wife nuts. I am starting to realize why my father did it, it was the only place he could retreat for sometime where it is quiet…
There are not books physically located in the bathroom, but reading in the bathroom is standard in our house, too. Many people will think it’s weird, especially on these boards. They talk about germs, and bacteria. I’m very quick, so they’ll say, “But you’re only in there five minutes!” But I say - hey, at 100 pages an hour, which is my reading speed, that’s like 8 or 9 pages in 5 minutes. (I hope I did the math right.) Plus, what else am I supposed to do? Sit there and stare at the walls?
On a side note, I have noticed that several Men’s Rooms at various places actually have a case above the urinals that have the front page of the sports section tacked inside. Although kind of wierd, I actually find myself staring at the wall reading the headlines while taking a leak…
I was in a public restroom once that had a TV in it… I can’t remember if it was Headline News or ESPN…
I’m a periodicals librarian. When the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue goes into the bathroom, we throw it out.
Personally, I keep all the catalogs in the bathroom.
We get magazines specifically for bathroom reading. Newsweek in particular is good for this. We also have some books (the best of the Weekly World News and a Simpsons episode guide) that are contantly stationed in the bathroom. The idea of going to be bathroom without something to read just seems unpleasant to me. In certain dire situations I’ve been known to read the back of shampoo bottles. Not nearly as entertaining as Newsweek, to be sure.
Bolding mine, I must have this!!! I sure miss Bat Boy.
Ew, no. That just… grosses me out. Though I do read books in the bathtub, which I’m sure some of you would find equally disgusting, so it all evens out. I guess.
Ha. This just reminded me of way back when I got my first gameboy colour. My brother would take it to play whilst using the biffy. I would have to sanitize that thing like crazy before I could knowingly play it again. :\
Me, too! I call it the Library Effect. I’d never made the connection between “I poop, therefore I read” and “I read, therefore I poop”!
Same here, we even have a small magazine stand in front of the toilet (and we also have the Bathroom Book thee). It’s where mail catalogs and old magazines go to die.
Sudden-loaf-pinching-urge always generates a what-to-read quest. Usually there’s a trade journal to take into the can-NTSB reports are so detailed I find my legs falling asleep from elbow pressure. 
My dad will sit in the bathroom for hours on end reading. We call it his “office.”
When I lived with my parents, I didn’t really have any privacy - My boyfriend and I shared a room, my sister and her boyfriend shared a room, my parents shared a room (and a bathroom) and we usually had the obligatory “Guy on the Couch” downstairs. The bathroom was the only place I really COULD read. I’d sit in there for hours. I’m female, in case that counts for anything.
Even though I have my own place now, I’ll often read in the bathroom. If I feel like I’m going to be in there for a particularly long time, I’ll take a stool (groan I didn’t mean it, sorry) and my laptop. I know, it’s weird, but it does entertain.
~Tasha
Definitley not. I like to go in, do my business, and get out. The whole process never takes longer than 5 minutes. I’m quite fine with it.
Back when Mom was a kid, there was no toilet paper available in Spain except for the very, very rich. The stuff sold was kraft paper (I think that’s the right name), which is about as absorbent as a brick and equally soft, so Grandma would just cut up old newspapers. Mom and Auntie talk about trying to puzzle the news together as they did their business.
I think the only one in the family who doesn’t take to the bathroom whatever he happens to be reading at the time is The Nephew, but that’s because he can’t read yet.
If I have to pee I’m in, out, done in less than twenty seconds. No time for reading there.
If I’ve got to take a longer visit, our toilet is well stocked with junk mail, cooking and PC gaming magazines, cookbooks, regular reading books and a copy of the Playboy Bartender’s Guide. You’ve never at a loss for anything to read in our loo. However I generally don’t spend more than about ten to fifteen minutes in there, unless there’s really something wrong with my gut. Hubby’ll spend anywhere between twenty to forty minutes, reading whatever book he’s got on the go at the time. It’s a pain, because he goes right before we go to bed - and I’ve usually gotta pee then!
I’m a bathroom reader. My wife makes fun of me for it.
I currently have a few books permanently located in the bathroom (a collection of Onion news stories, State By State with The State, Mike Nelson’s Mind Over Matters, stuff like that).
The latest thing I’m reading on the john is (appropriately) a book called The Poo Bomb, subtitled, “True Tales of Parental Terror”, which is a man’s account of the first year with his new baby. It’s a very funny read, because he’s not nearly as reverent about the whole “miracle of parenthood” as others. He calls his kid “a dopey 10 pound sack of stupid” because that’s basically what an infant is, and he laughs at her when she, for instance, gets so involved in sucking her hand that she gags herself. A real good read, and since it’s divided into sections maybe two to five paragraphs long, it’s great for the bathroom, because you can stop just about anywhere and not be in the middle of something.