When decorating a guest bathroom it is important to establish boundaries - something that says "this is my house, you fuckers; you tend to your collective bodily functions and hygiene at my discretion in the same manner a serf is suffered to live at the whim of a tyrant". Some people only stock the cheaper soaps and lotions, the old towels, last month's magazines, and toilet paper that feels as though it had been crocheted out of burlap; others make a point to leave a bar of Cor soap that cost a dollar a gram, their finest linens, a Kindle, and toilet paper that feels as though it had been spun out of virgin wool. Whether through indifference or fawning, the message is clear: your host alone determines your level of comfort. Either way, it's an awful lot of work.
Having no time or patience for picking out endless insults or indulgences for my guests, I am resigned to making a single but rather overt statement with my shower curtain. It is unquestionably noticable, the nature of a shower curtain in a bathroom, even when it isn't the point of the visit. Sheerly by size, and often by the serendipitous placement in front or immediately to one side of the other focal points. Hell, it's even visible when opposite the vanity courtesy of the human frailty from whence it is so named. A message to your guest by way of shower curtain is both unavoidable and unquestionable. It says "respect my domain, for if I would do this to my own dwelling, imagine the disdain I will show your corporeal person should you displease me."
Certainly such a statement is both safer than occasionally risking your own discomfort with the burlap toilet paper and cheaper than stocking designer soap made with goddamned silver.
(1 "A James Cagney love scene is one where he lets the other guy live." - B. Hope)
