I read that women spend 1.5 years in the bathroom, over the course of a lifetime. That can’t be true. It has to be much longer.

For women (especially moms), a bathroom is a refuge, reading room, mini-spa, hiding place for chocolate (behind the unused bottles of dry shampoo) and crying lounge. So 18 months seems highly underestimated. Not to mention the years spent cleaning the damn room.

(Best. Shower. Curtain. Ever.)

Here’s a rundown of ways women utilize the most underrated room in the house:

• It’s the weighing room, where the number on the scale determines your mood for the next 24 hours.
• As an anti-aging cream testing lab. Once cream is applied to face, look closely in the mirror to monitor the results. If nothing changes immediately, the jar goes into the wrinkle cream graveyard under the sink.
• The place where all the lost hair huddles around the baseboards, eventually forming an evolutionary new creature.
• A gathering place for half-used bottles of hotel shampoos and conditioners. 

(All that hotel stealing for nothing.)

• A library where you can finally finish the last ten pages of a novel, without being continually interrupted by grubby-handed children, or husbands.
• A studio for trying new make-up techniques found on Pinterest–usually with horrific results. There’s no such thing as an “easy” smoky eye. And don’t get me started on those intricate steps to eradicate lip lines. Pinterest lies.
• The black hole where lip gloss, tampons, eye shadow, razors and deodorant go missing–especially if there’s a teenage daughter living in the house.
• A place to agonize over/celebrate pregnancy tests.
• A selfie photo studio. Obviously, way too many women spend loads of time in the bathroom with their cameras.
• A grown-up fort where you end up yelling at your 3-year-old through the door, screeching you just need a few minutes to use the bathroom or you will strangle her Tickle Me Elmo.

(You know they’ll find you.)

• The location for “stress-relieving” baths that include your kids methodically kicking the door every 15-30 seconds.
• A stop for pregnancy bathroom breaks. Every 15 minutes.
• During summer months only: Shaving legs, waxing,  applying fake tanning cream.
• The place to make phone calls without your child interrupting you. This only works in theory. Your child will still stand outside the door and talk to you.
• The room for applying face masks without the risk of scaring small children and husbands.

(I warned you not to open the door!!)

• A place for looking in the mirror, checking for panty lines or underarm sweat (or underarm lines and panty sweat).
• A place for looking in the mirror checking for pimples, wrinkles, food in teeth, gray hair, lip fuzz, nose boogers, dry skin, eye boogers, errant eyebrows and pore size. Just for starters.
• A room to ponder the path of your life, wondering how in the hell you ended up in a bathroom hiding from your family.