How long have you managed to hide in the toilet for?

I am absolutely sure at some point as parents you have hidden in the toilet to get some peace and quiet. But how long does this normally last. Not long for me usually. Ten minutes max I can probably make it last before children are banging on the door. But still hiding out on the toilet is my go to place. Over Christmas though I think I achieved the impossible and broke the world record. So this week my question is to you guys…

“How long have you managed to hide in the toilet for?”

Here is my world record…..
I had no idea how long I’d been sat on the downstairs toilet but by some sort of miracle it had been a long time. I wasn’t on the toilet, just sat on it in the dark hoping and praying that nobody in my family would come and find me. And so far nobody had. My son had just come back from his dad’s and it hadn’t gone according to plan. I had moved his Christmas presents half an inch while he had been away and he wasn’t happy. And I wasn’t happy. I felt sick of it all. I understood it but it didn’t make it any easier. After my son had thrown the sofa cushions around the room and cried and screamed  I removed myself from the situation. I said I needed to go, and I found the downstairs toilet and sat there crying for a while. I honestly didn’t think I could go back out there. When my husband came to find me I knew I would break down and say I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t stay calm, I couldn’t make things work, I just couldn’t do it anymore. I felt panicked. Panicked that I didn’t know what to do. Panicked that my son hated me. Panicked that it was all too much for me. Someone rescue me please, someone help me please.

But as I sat there I felt the house calm, I could hear my son had eventually found my daughter and they were laughing together so I stayed in the toilet. I was going to wait until I stopped crying which took a while and then I would go back out and see everyone but once I stopped crying I realised everyone was fine without me. They didn’t need me which made me feel like crying even more. I continued to sit there contemplating life.

I sat there.
And sat there.
And sat there.
And nobody came to find me.

And as the time ticked by I wondered why nobody had come to find me. I didn’t have my phone with me, I had left it in the living room so I actually had no idea how long I had been sitting there but I knew it was a long time. And I sat there some more. Eventually someone would come and find me. Surely someone would. I sat there more and more. And then I started to feel a bit angry. Why hadn’t anyone come to find me?!? Did they even need me?!?! Then I heard my husband’s footsteps, this was it he would find me. But no he started washing up. I heard him wash every cup. He then asked all the kids what they wanted for tea. They all shouted back what they wanted and I realised I was completely redundant. Nobody needed me, nobody wanted me. I couldn’t quite believe that nobody had come to see if I was ok. Well this answered it, it was me. I was the problem. So I just sat there. I looked out the window, I counted the shoes on the shoe rack, I counted the coats hung up. I sat back on the toilet and rested my head, I think at one point I may have even fallen asleep. I went through every emotion sat on that toilet. Sadness, distress, anger, peace, calmness, annoyance, despair, hysteria.

And after a long long time I heard my husband on the phone, talking about someone missing, how worried he was, how it had been well over an hour and he didn’t know what to do. I thought….oh my he’s talking about me so I peeled myself off the toilet and revealed myself. He looked shocked and relieved and happy to see me.

He couldn’t believe I had been in the toilet all this time.

I couldn’t believe he hadn’t come to find me.

But it turns out my daughter had looked out of the window to check on my car. She had told my husband my car wasn’t there so when I disappeared they had thought I had gone for a drive to clear my head (not that unusual I do quite often go for a drive to clear my head but I have a well known route that takes me about 10 minutes not this long so they had started to worry).  I had recently got a new car and started parking it in a different spot to my usual spot and my daughter had forgotten that, looked in the usual spot and there was no car there and so they all thought I had left. So they had all been worried about me and I had been so upset that nobody was worried about me. Well we laughed and laughed and laughed. They did care after all.

And how long did I manage to hide out in the toilet….well it was a whole 90 minutes.

90 minutes.

90 bloody minutes. And not one person found me. That has to be a record.

So, what is your record?