Living Rootless: Mobile, Alabama: Bathrooms Present and Past

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Mobile, Alabama: Bathrooms Present and Past

My bathroom in Mobile:

Mobile bathroom. Alabama. July 2022. Credit: Mzuriana.

I remember how joyous I felt about the light and space of my bathroom in Ferguson after a year in El Paso's coffinesque shower and converted-hall bathroom.

My shower in Ferguson, Missouri. November 2017. Credit: Mzuriana.

My bathroom in Birmingham had the charm of a 1980s small-town medical clinic. No toilet paper holder. It did offer the dubious benefit of a window, street level, smack at breast-level in the shower, with the view of the boarded-up building across the street (before it was demolished), then the plowed earth after the violence of demolition, and, in time, a rather pleasant rolling green.

My Birmingham bathroom. Alabama. July 2020. Credit: Mzuriana.

My Birmingham bathroom. Alabama. June 2021. Credit: Mzuriana.

As my bathrooms have gone over the years, my Mobile bathroom falls in the Land of Not. Meaning, it's:

Not unpleasant, with the light that comes in from the west-facing window, and with the old-school, recessed wooden medicine cabinet and shelf above the sink
Not too small
Not surprising to have a clunky hose-and-shower-wand retro-fit kind of set-up because the building is a centenarian and showers weren't a thing back then
Not surprising that the new shower wand holder, affixed to the wall at a height appropriate for most tenants, fell off in short order because Mobile is the rainiest city in the entire continental U.S., and the adhesive used for said affixation was not up to the job, which meant I slid the shower wand into the former shower wand holder, which had been thoughtfully kept installed (because it was screwed into the wall), which was lower on the wall, which was 90% not terrible, because I am rather short, although the loss of the new holder left a wound on the wall where the new holder had been, resulting in rather an esthetic insult.
Also not surprising that when it rains or when the humidity is high, there are moist blotches on the bathroom walls
Not expected at all that I have not even once had to employ the toilet plunger I bought in Birmingham, to which I granted precious real estate in my Prius during relocation, and which is a testament either to the good design of the Mobile toilet or the pipes or to the mystical power of the mere presence of the plunger in the space
Not pleasing that I need to flush out the iron water for a few seconds from the tub spigot before taking a shower