How to stock a bathroom library

Forget Field and Stream.

Forget National Geographic and Good Housekeeping.

Forget the newspaper, “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and the book of old Garfield cartoons.

For a real bathroom experience, you’ll have to visit our house.

True, a person shouldn’t incite his neighbors to covetousness, but I can’t hold it anymore.

I must tell the exciting news of how the quest for a Ph.D. is creating what may well be the largest bathroom library in the Greater Massey Metropolitan Area.

The draftsman who drew plans for our house found a way to take half of a 112-square-foot walk-in closet and turn it into an office.

The only catch was the entrance. The pocket door from the office opens directly into a bathroom.

This makes it possible to take care of all kinds of business in one convenient location.

During construction I had mistaken myself for an author of fiction and thought the bathroom office would be perfect for writing. I eventually proved, however, that anything longer than a 16-inch newspaper column strained my writing abilities.

So, the bathroom office became a place to balance the checkbook and collect dust.

But then the real writer in the family — my wife Jenny — began crafting fiction manuscripts. She also began graduate school at Middle Tennessee State University to earn her doctorate in literature and linguistics.

Seeking a quiet place to work, she agreed to swap her new living room desk for the bathroom office.

She persuaded her newspaper-columnists-turned-writer-of-fiction-turned-collector-of-dust-turned-carpenter-husband to build bookshelves to hold a growing set of literature and textbooks.

And that is how we began creating the largest local collection of bathroom literature.

Instead of reading a magazine article on how to snag bigmouth bass, the educated library patron can seek parallels between “The Call of The Wild” and other literary works.

Instead of working a crossword puzzle, the well-versed reader may explore the world of feminism in literary criticism.

Since we don’t have an official library at Massey, we’re thinking of going public and issuing library cards.

Unfortunately, we would have to fine library patrons who overstay their visit and keep others waiting too long outside the door.