Rich and I don't have many boundaries in our relationship. We're pretty open with each other and enjoy each others' company all day. We work in the same office and sleep in the same bed. But there are a few places I draw the line. We don't close our bathroom door. In fact, we toyed with not even installing one in our master suite but figured some other couple that lives in this house one day might be more uptight than us. I'm used to carrying on conversations with Rich while one or the other of us is occupied in the potty. But I've set my foot down on getting too close to me while I'm sitting on the toilet. Cuddle time is not in session once I've just spent several minutes "trying to open a jar of pickles" as David Sedaris would say. I thought this would be obvious, but we've had multiple conversations about it.

Invariably, we'll be talking and he'll dutifully keep his distance. But once I'm all cleaned up and have flushed but am still sans pants, Rich is all "Ooh! Naked butt!" and feels the need to grope my ass. After the first warning, he was remorseful. Then the second time he smacked my bottom and immediately apologized, but there was a mischievous smirk to it. Apparently I need to declare that I'M ABOUT TO GO POOP AND EVEN THOUGH THAT MEANS I'LL BE PARTIALLY UNDRESSED THAT'S NOT AN INVITATION TO COME GROPE ME.

He's gotten better about naked ass groping, but has a bit of short term memory loss and will squeeze my behind about .04 seconds after I've walked out of the bathroom. He's following the letter of the law but not the spirit. A few days ago, I announced that I was going upstairs to "talk to a man about a dog" but we could keep talking. As I exited the bathroom he absentmindedly groped me without even a break in conversation. I issued a stern warning and told him I would rather he not grope quite yet. We continued chatting and were preparing to go out for some dinner. I may have even mentioned I wasn't feeling so great. As I bent over to grab my shoes, he was eye level with Wife Ass and gave it a big ol' smack. And I stood straight up and lost my mind.

"God Dammit! Can you PLEASE just stay away from this whole butt area for at least 30 minutes after I have exited the bathroom? I appreciate a good-natured smack as much as the next girl, but my ass is not in any condition for groping right now and as a personal favor to me, could you just show a little self-restraint until everything is all settled?!"

As I decreed all of this, I was yelling and waving my arms around my torso as if using an imaginary hula hoop. Rich looked at me as I stood huffing at him and then we both immediately burst into laughter. He apologized for violating my Personal Butt Space and after discussing it a bit he reminded me it was 24 minutes before he would touch my butt.

I think I'm going to hang a stopwatch around my neck every time I leave the bathroom to enforce this one rule I have.