Bathrooms

she told me she liked the house
but it didn’t have enough bathrooms.
Young and single, not an eligible
bachelor in sight, she still needed
two and three quarters, not even
two and a half would do.
Driving an extra half hour to work
to get the extra quarter bathroom
in a new house would be worth it.
Nice girl, pretty and well-educated,
and she knew what she wanted.
Big Papa leaned back in his lazy-boy
and laughed that long belly laugh
of someone who has nothing better
to do and nowhere better to do it.
Back in my day, he started,
we had a two holer in the backyard.
I would go outside at 2 a.m. and
Grandma would be sitting there
waiting for someone to come in,
like a spider in her lair. I couldn’t
even see her by the glint of moonlight
on her teeth, since she had none.
She would grab me when I sat down
and try to kiss me on my mouth,
her white moustache tickling my face.
Ah, he said, smiling to himself
at the memory, to have a single holer
in the backyard would have been heaven.

Photo courtesy of http://flickr.com/photos/zaskem/2064137487/