“You can get a meal at any McDonalds, but when you’re sick to your stomach you need your bathroom.”

“Wow …That’s so true! Good one,” Sadie said, nodding her head and increasing the depth of her crow’s feet wrinkles while she pounded her left forearm into the air, thumb up.

“Yeah, I wish I’d said it first,” nodded Maria. “And I wish I knew the name of the guy I heard it from, but I don’t. He was a small man, around 50, a chair rider. It was when I was first exposed to universal design.”

“So the toilet really is the throne?”

“Absolutely. Proper house design centers on the commode.”

They giggled but they were serious. There’s general agreement that the heart of a house is the kitchen. Or whatever room is used to prepare food and to create the warmth that draws folks together. It was the grandmas of Bath who first challenged that agreement, but their challenge was whispered and even now is seldom audible. They pointed to the bathroom and they praised.

“There’s no question that the bathroom is my favorite place in the house,” Maria asserted. “It has light, warmth, ventilation. Privacy.”

“And water of all temperatures,” sang Sadie.

“I like its size. It’s not too big a room.”

“I love the tub.”

“And it’s very helpful: what the toilet does for us.”

“One of the best things about the bathroom is how easy it is to keep clean.”

“In fact, it’s where we get the word ‘snug’ from.”

“I didn’t know that. Wait a minute: I seem to remember ‘snug’ describing a boat.”

“The popular story,” Maria scoffed. “The word means ‘compact, trim.’ And yes the sailors took it up fast and spread it far. But it was the women of Bath who first used it to describe a clean and comfortable small space. The origin was similar to ‘cozy.’ That word was coined by Dutch housewives. Around 1600, when Holland surged into shipping prominence. Suddenly there was a sizable middle class. Families were prosperous enough to buy houses but not to pay servants. The housewife had to manage the cooking and the cleaning. Which conditions brought about the first sensible kitchens and easy-to-clean rooms. The ladies created the conditions and called them cozy.

“A similar situation arose when the grandmas settled Bath. They had to design their own bathrooms, and build them and maintain them, and that meant they paid more attention to cleaning issues than nonresidential architects did. One of the town founders used the Swedish word snygg to describe what they wanted. Snygg means ‘neat’ (from an Old Norse word for ‘short-haired’) and it mouth-morphed to ‘snug’ within weeks. The guys picked it up from us. Think about it: snug and snuggle are not masculine ideas.”