See, if you're in the bathtub, and if you're really careful, you can get your washcloth to float on the surface of the water. All you have to do is take it by its edges and sort of drag it slowly on the surface. Then, let go and it will stay there, floating.

That's what I figured out when I was about five. And so I used to sit in the bathtub, floating my washcloth, and thinking my weird little thoughts: I wonder how they tame the raccoons on Grizzly Adams? They probably dress up in raccoon costumes, so that the racoons are fooled into thinking they aren't humans. You know, that sort of thing.

One day I was in the bathtub when my sister knocked on the door, saying she needed her hairbrush or something lame like that. This ticked me off. Coming from a large family, it was almost never possible to have any privacy, even in the bathroom. Rolling my eyes, I found the obvious solution.

I floated the washcloth so that it perfectly obscured my weiner. Then I leaned back in the tub with my hands behind my head and said, "Come in."

My sister opened the door, looked at me, grabbed her hairbrush and left. Outside the door, I heard the following conversation:

Sister: "So I go in there and ..."
Female Cousin: "I saw!"

It served them right.

When I was about 11, some distant relatives were visiting and the house was even more overrun than usual. At one point, I was in the bathroom doing my business, when some woman opened the door (without knocking) shrieked and slammed it closed again. She apologized and went back downstairs.

For some reason, I developed a crystal clear image in my mind of what would happen when she went back down and told everyone what happened. Someone would grab her and frantically ask, "Did you see his butt? Did you see his weiner?"

Obviously, that's what happened. Because distant relatives in their 50s want to know -- desperately, according to my 11-year-old mind -- all about my butt and weiner.

A few years ago when I moved into the apartment downstairs of where I live now, my landlords gave me a tour of the house, showing me all the features. "This is cool," Nick said, pointing to a sort-of half-blind on the bathroom window. "It lets in a lot of light at the top, but no one can see your weiner."

And really, that's all I ask for. A roof over my head, three squares a day, and complete control over who can and cannot see my butt and weiner.

Life is simple, after all.