Gorilla Grip Met Its Match

The Gorilla Grip Non-Slip Bath Mat arrived on a Tuesday. It had ridges. It had grip. It had a purpose, which is more than most things in this house can claim. BW unboxed it with the kind of hope that only a woman who has spent six months catching a slippery seven-year-old in a bathtub can muster. She laid it down flat on the tub floor, smoothed it out, stepped back. It looked serious. Competent. Like it had climbed actual mountains.

The child did not slip on the first day. Or the second. BW actually smiled at me on day three. A real smile. Not the one where she's thinking about something else. The one where her shoulders drop.

By day four, the child had discovered that if you stood on one end of the mat and pushed with your feet, the other end would curl up just enough to create a ramp. A small, textured ramp. Ideal for launching herself toward the opposite wall of the tub. The Gorilla Grip did not see this coming. Nobody's grip, no matter how gorilla-adjacent, prepares you for a seven-year-old who views a safety feature as a physics problem to be solved.

On day seven, she had wedged it into the corner and was using it as a kind of springboard-slash-backstop situation. The mat was pinched. It was warped. It was, in a real sense, betrayed. It had trained for slipping prevention. It had not trained for this.

Last night, the child got bored and relocated it to the hallway. The bathroom hallway. The wet bathroom hallway. (Wet hallways are their own thing. Different physics entirely.) I found it this morning folded into thirds and blocking the entire passage like a foam barricade. BW stepped over it without comment. She was back to holding the child's hand in the tub.

The Gorilla Grip is still in the hallway. It's dry now. Sort of. There's a smell coming from underneath it that suggests something important happened on the tile. The child won't remember what. BW will remember forever. I'm leaving it where it is because moving it is not my job. The mat gave it everything. It had the grip. It had the gorilla. It just didn't have whatever it is that seven-year-olds have.

Sometimes the thing with the most grip slips anyway.

If you liked this story about the Gorilla Grip Non-Slip Bath Mat, you can buy your own on Amazon. Remember, we're BFF if you do.