Considering how ubiquitous they are nowadays, it’s easy to forget how many things have to go right for a good selfie.
Not only does the lighting have to be ideal, but getting the desired angle is often harder than it looks. Plus, sometimes our faces just refuse to make expressions that we’re OK with showing the world.
With all of this in mind, it can be very easy to forget to pay attention to what’s going on in the background. But as one model found out, it’s even easier for those background elements to steal the focus when they’re strange enough.
Anyone can claim to be a model, but Paula Sophia Garcia Espino has the resumé to back it up.
This has proved especially true this year as the last couple of months have seen her appear in the videos for the 21 Savage song “Ball w/o you” and the Schoolboy Q song “Floating.”
But last year, she received an entirely different kind of attention for a selfie she took from the bathroom at her aunt’s house in Mexico.
In the photo, she can be seen perched on the edge of what appears to be a counter in the bathroom to snap a cheeky selfie in the mirror.
Hey, we’ve all been there. When you’re feeling fly, you gotta capture the moment.
Although she appeared to take this photo with confidence, she was more unsure of how it turned out than she let on.
As she told Buzzfeed News, “I was literally about to delete the picture but I decided not to.”
If she had, the internet would have never known how frustrated and fascinated it could make everyone all at once.
And that wasn’t because of how she looked or anything she was doing, but rather the state of the bathroom behind her.
It seemed perfectly clean, but the way it was designed was enough to baffle any builder. And soon, Twitter was awash with comments wondering what was going on.
For one thing, you might have noticed that the toilet paper dispenser is nowhere near the toilet.
This left commenters wondering if whoever installed that expected users to get up and waddle while desperately needing to wipe.
It also seemed odd to include an outlet directly above the toilet and nowhere near the sink.
After all, most of us aren’t exactly looking to gamble on the possibility of our phones falling in the toilet while we’re trying to charge them.
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However, if there was one thing that rivaled the toilet paper placement in strangeness, it was the decision to put a towel rack under the toilet.
As inconvenient as it is to hang a towel on a bar like the one above, it’s at least possible to do.
It’s even hard to argue that the toilet bar aids accessibility because it’s weirdly hard to reach.
Personally, I can’t say I’d be inclined to touch anything below or behind the toilet, let alone be expected to reach under there when I need to dry my hands.
I’d sooner resign myself to a life of jazz hand-level shakes to dry them or just wiping them on the thighs of my pants, thank you very much.
Of course, the people of the internet did what they do best and tore that bathroom apart with their comments.
This person in particular took things one step further and drew everyone’s attention to the less-traditional shape of the bathroom door, but I think there’s bigger and more pressing concerns inside this room than the entrance/exit.
More than anything else, people online were just simply baffled by the bathroom’s overall design.
All criticisms aside, everyone just wanted to know one thing: why ? Why was it designed this way? Why has her aunt never tried to change anything? Why would anyone look at this bathroom and think, “Yep, this is exactly what a bathroom should be” and just leave it at that?
Since people demanded an explanation, Espino talked to her aunt and was able to fill in some of the blanks.
As expected, her aunt has no use for the bar under the toilet, so as to why it’s there, your guess is as good as anyone’s.
However, she does find the outlet particularly handy.
Apparently she’s always on her phone so it’s kind of convenient to charge it as she uses the toilet. That being said, it’s definitely way less convenient when it’s time to plug in a hair dryer.
That doesn’t seem to be enough reason to look into changing it, though.
Espino also calmed everyone’s toilet paper fears by saying that there’s another roll next to the toilet.
Of course, this means the far-away dispenser is completely superfluous, but what else is new with this bathroom?
As for how she feels about the strange design of her aunt’s bathroom, she said, “To be honest I never noticed all these odd things until people pointed them out.”
So clearly it’s not quite the nightmare bathroom people online have painted it to be if it’s largely gone unnoticed by those who’ve graced its pearly throne.
h/t: Buzzfeed News
