As many parents, including my mother, have done, I have pulled out the "I am the Mother" card as my carte blanche reason for many decisions.

I also pepper mine with: "I'm the boss, I call the shots, what I say goes."

Cole knows this fact very well. To the point of when his father gave him the passive response of, "We'll have to see what your mother says" one evening, Cole let out a wail.

"She will say no! And you know she's the boss!"

However, I may not be.

Actress Tina Fey said whoever charges in on you when you are in the bathroom is the boss.

"I am in big trouble," I told Mama. "I haven't been the boss of anything in years."

"Can't you lock the door?" Mama asked.

"Yeah, I can. But then there's the screaming, the begging, the crying. And that's just me trying to brush my teeth in peace."

Or trying to take a nice relaxing bubble bath at the end of a stressful day, which usually lasts about 15 minutes.

Actually, it probably takes longer to fill the tub than I get to soak. Cole will get down on his hands and
knees and try to peer under the door, fishing his fingers underneath like he's a cat.

"I can see you," he will call under the door. "Why are you in there? Why don't you want us in there too?"

The ‘us' is him and the dogs. I haven't been in the bathroom by myself in nearly 10 years. Venus, my female shepherd, is convinced that swirling tornado going down the drain will take me with it. She sticks her head in the curtain to keep an eye on me and insists on lying on the bathmat so the first thing I step on is her when I pull back the shower curtain.

It doesn't help that we have a one-bathroom abode.

But even when we had a two-bathroom house, and I had my own bathroom, I was still far from being the queen of my own potty.

"Do you have an extra razor?" Lamar would ask me while I took a shower. "Extra shaving cream?"

He always seemed to wait until I had a head full of shampoo to ask me to give him the logistics of where he could find said items.
Even back then, Venus would manage to open the door and wait by the tub in case I accidently got sucked down the drain.

If earning the title of boss of the house comes from whoever is brazen enough to barge in on someone in the bathroom, I have got a long way to go to world domination, let alone ruling my own house.

I'm not sure who's really in charge here, but when I find out I am going to let them know they need to get some locks.

Lots and lots of locks.

Sudie Crouch is an award-winning humor columnist and certified life coach. She lives in the north Georgia mountains with her family and four insane, but fairly well behaved dogs.