When in Rome, ride a horse. Actually, I'm almost positive that is not the correct adage. At least it sounds convincing. When in France, however, never step foot inside the bathroom, or as they like to call it, la salle de bain or les toilettes.



The first thing that comes to mind with the idea of French hygiene is the infamous "French shower". For those of you who have been leading rock-like sedentary lives, Urban Dictionary defines a French shower as (I'll spare you the much raunchier, yet more popular definition)



" To cleanse ones self by applying only deodorant and cologne (or perfume). The French reference is in place because of the widely-held notion that the French are not fond of bathing on a regular basis."

"A bathroom, otherwise found to be repugnant in nature, brought to perfect cleanliness by a simply spritz or two from a nondescript bottle of cleaning solution."

Used in sentence: Man 1: Man, dat bathroom wuz so nasty after Tanisha left. Man 2: Man, just French Bathroom dat shizz! Man 1: "Oui Oui!"

We as a society have been trying to wane from our harsh-generalizing selves with the advent of political correctness and whathaveyou, but this poor bathroom scene seems to epitomize the notion of decreased hygiene too perfectly. The door swings open to a horrific scene of both antipathy and mind-eroding perplexity.Foregoing the questionable conditions of the bathroom, my first qualm was where my entitled American bum would rest while my bowels moved with abrasive yet gleeful dignity. Being a typical sedentary American, I have the muscular stamina of a dying squirrel, and there would simply be no way that my muscles would cooperate with me during my stay were I to squat-and-go. Being a typical sedentary American, I like to sit and stay a while, get used to the warming porcelain, read the newspaper, and maybe read Reddit on my Android phone. I am not and never will be accustomed to or familiar with the squat-and-go technique. At least I have my peeing technique down to a tee. (To a pee?) I'm positive I'd have the time of my life aiming into a hole in the ground. It's classy, it's fun, it's France. I think it's remarkably cute that they have designated areas to place your feet in order to stay in place as you spell out relief. It's as if there have been slippage errors in the past. No worries though, a French shower can clean that right up.The bathroom itself looks like an architectural flaw. It's like they just started building, realized there was an open space left, and decided it was worthy enough to become a salle de bain. The broken concrete flooring adds a certain rustic touch to the experience. Perhaps the French are onto something though. Spend less on bathrooms and more on universal health-care and the Eiffel Tower. Or maybe the entire bathroom is just a metaphor for our broken and misunderstood relationship between body, mind, and bathroom?One thing that pleases me about this bathroom is the spray bottle of nondescript cleaning solution. Thank the bathroom gods for this inclusion. I honestly think this bathroom would have been a bust without it. It really ties the room together and helps push and epitomize the french shower notion. Only, in this case, it is now a French Bathroom. Allow me to coin that phrase, but please credit me. A French Bathroom is:Oui Oui indeed. I wonder what the oui oui concentration was in this bathroom. Nevertheless, I give this french bathroom a 2 out of 5 shakes. The bottle saved it from becoming a 1 shake bathroom.