When toilets went from outside somewhere to having its own room in the house, it brought a lot of changes. The actual design of such a room was first considered as luxurious and comforting, but an easy-to-clean and sanitize design won out. Then there's the medicine cabinet. Medicines were previously kept in the kitchen, where Mom could keep up with them. Then the medicine cabinet was invented, which was at first just a medicine box on the wall. What to keep in this cabinet was a question enthusiastically answered by those who sold such products, and it was Mom's duty to keep it well-stocked, as we learn in an interview with historian Deanna Day.
Right, there’s the familiar image of the snoopy houseguest who goes into the bathroom and starts poking around in the medicine cabinet to see what sort of pills you have or what kind of lotion you use, only to be discovered when things start falling out and crashing to the floor. You write about a James Thurber short story that plays on this.
Yes, “Nine Needles.” It plays on the idea that the medicine cabinet holds tools that you use to take care of your very private bodily needs, and they’re sort of hidden away. But at the same time that the medicine cabinet is a private space, it also has a public dimension; it’s a hideaway but—unlike perhaps other closed-off spaces in the home—it’s in a room that guests are actually invited into. Then it becomes a private space that guests are actually given a private opportunity to explore, if they want to. It feels like a minor transgression to open the cabinet and see what kinds of things your hosts are using on their bodies, a relatively low-stakes form of gaining secret knowledge about them.
I believe that's a little naive, as there are friends, acquaintances, and even family members who will look in there to see what they can take. But all that aside, the story of the development, expectations, and curation of the medicine cabinet can be found at (appropriately) Cabinet Magazine. -via Metafilter
This person had done these things before to some of our other friends, too. So... we set up our medicine cabinet to hold hundreds of marbles. If anyone opened it all the marbles would spill out and make an awful noise.
Sure enough, about an hour into the party this person went into the bathroom and opened up the cabinet. Most of the folks at the party knew what might happen so there was a bit of a crowd around the bathroom door. The guest came out of the bathroom to face them all laughing at him/her. He/She left shortly after that after having apologized for snooping.
Harsh? You bet. But this person had 'sticky' fingers and sometimes our medicine bottles would disappear after their visit but they would be long gone before we noticed there were missing items. The marbles seemed to cure their curiosity because they were never seen snooping again. At least not around this circle of people.