Puzzles in the Privy: Who Knew? And Why?
Hello there! Last month while meticulously researching my post for National Dog Day, I noticed there were so many puzzles depicting dogs in the bathroom and, honestly, bathrooms in general that they might warrant their own post.
You might think the things we do in the bathroom are a bit, uh, personal. But is it any more personal than riding a unillama while eating handhelds in rainbow space? So, fair warning: bathrooms ahead. And not just any bathrooms. Puzzle bathrooms.
This Steepin N Soakin puzzle by SunsOut starts us off with a fairly down-to-earth scene of this woman unwinding in the tub after a long day.
She’s able to relax despite the title of this puzzle missing no fewer than 4 apostrophes, so it’s possible she’s not a copy editor. It’s also possible that she is a copy editor and the lack of attention to punctuation is related to the off-duty nature of being in the bathroom with food and drink.
Next up, Bouffants and Broken Hearts – Spa Day is an adorable puzzle that sort of resembles a nightmare I have.
Bouffants and Broken Hearts – Spa Day
This is the nightmare where I’m a cheetah stuck in the tub holding a glass of pink fizzy water that has better lips that I do, and I’m about to receive mail that looks like it’s going to be a coupon for Crumbl Cookie but is actually a bill, and my friends have no sense of privacy but they do have cocktails and cake, which they consume in front of me. All this while the punctuation after “just chill” makes it clear that “just chill” is a command and not a state of mind, which only adds to my irritation. Obviously, in my nightmare (and in several of my better dreams) an avocado is having a better time than I am.
Speaking of nightmares, this next puzzle comes with a trigger warning for any farmers out there who also live in houses with bathrooms. Bathtime Chip features a sort-of-helpful dog giving a pig a bath in the bathroom sink.
I’ve seen how pigs live on my aunt and uncle’s farm, and I’m sure my aunt would tell everyone very firmly to clear out if she walked in on this scene.
This puzzle does raise more questions than it answers, the biggest of them (aside from what brand of soap are they using?) is who is that homemade sign made for? The dog? If that’s the case, then it must be a ruse to get the dog to bathe the pig against its better judgment. The pig? Then it’s a trick to get the pig into the sink. The farmer? Then it’s a conspiracy to allow this ridiculousness and hope that the homemade sign will provide cover. And who made the sign? My head is swirling like a Southern Hemisphere drain – which is to say, counterclockwise.
This puzzle, Funny Duckies, makes me nostalgic for the old days of giving the kids a bath.
Fortunately, I never lost a kid to ducky drown, but I could have, given that this is what their baths looked like for the half hour every other day it took their baths to go from lukewarm to room temperature to hypothermia-inducing and then the 45 minutes after that. Just the other day, I found all the duckies in a basket in the closet, and because I could see mold inside them through the yellow of their little bellies and snouts, I threw them out. Don’t worry, dear reader, the kids are too busy doing “fun” and “nothing puzzle-related” to look at my blog, so there is no chance of them waxing nostalgic over their childhood relics and cross-examining me over their whereabouts later like they did with the Sillybandz. At least not based on this post.
I think Mischief Makers might be my favorite bathroom puzzle, and not just because it features a turquoise wall. It’s just remarkably calm for the level of dysfunction depicted.
Sure, there’s no mat to soak up the bath slop and the kittens are stuck to the curtains, but someone also remembered to put out the candles before letting the animals in there, the toothbrushes are not being chewed on, and no one has knocked over the flowers or even chewed and vomited them back up. After the Corn Crisis of 2024 (yes, they have to be numbered so I can keep them straight), my cat chewed on and then threw up corn husks three times before I figured out where he was even getting them from. So, naturally, these animals look well behaved.
In Wild and Whimsical – The Library, we finally have a stately take on an animal bathroom puzzle.
Wild and Whimsical – The Library
This bespectacled gentleman is reading the newspaper that covers all the parts that need to be covered, the way newspapers do. There’s a portrait, a fishbowl, and a fire hydrant all in the same bathroom, so you know it’s dignified. On the other hand, this puzzle is not particularly wild and doesn’t take place in a library, so I’m assuming it’s also leaning heavily into the whimsy... Maybe that explains the fire hydrant, fishbowl, and portrait all in the same bathroom?
Last, we have Wild and Whimsical – Bathtime Antics. This puzzle appears to be in the same series as the previous puzzle, so perhaps the rule of ones (no two puzzles can take place in the same location) explains why they called that one a “library.
Wild and Whimsical – Bathtime Antics
This puzzle speaks to me for two reasons. First, the majority of those cats look like my current cat. Of course, they are far more interested in me than my own cat is. And second, this is the exact expression Mr. Ambassador has when I walk in on him brushing his teeth, and not because he’s using kitten scrub, rather because he is doing something he thinks is terribly private in spite of the fact that it’s recommended by 7 out of 10 dentists. Don’t worry, dear reader, Mr. Ambassador is too busy doing “oral hygiene” and “nothing puzzle-related” to look at my blog, so there is no chance of him discovering he’s been compared to this expressive mackerel tabby and cross-examining me over it later like he did with the Corn Crisis of 2024. At least not based on this post.
Now, let’s review the key takeaways from these bathroom puzzles (that’s biz lingo for “stuffsies we learned along the wainscot trail”): 1) There are a lot of toilets and even more bathtubs (in use) available for us all to puzzle. And 2) If you aren’t filling every tub and sink to the spillpoint at the same time and then stuffing any number of animals that historically do not like or need to be submerged into them, then you aren’t bathrooming right.
~Robin
