FACING IT!

The other night I crawled into bed (which is where I often do my most creative thinking) and told Jerry not to go to sleep because I needed to talk to him. His stock comment is always, “You are going to divorce me” so I beat him to the punch and said it wasn’t about divorce, it was about showering. And just so he wouldn’t think I was going to talk specifically about something he had or hadn’t done, I offered up that it was about MY showering. (I could hear a sigh of relief).

My question was this: Assuming that I showered 4 times a week, how many times would that mean I had showered in the 6 years we have lived in this apartment.

Jerry is a very math-oriented person and he can do multiplication and division lying flat on his back in the dark much easier than I can do it standing up with a calculator in the daylight, so I listened carefully to him compute. Granted he was rounding numbers off, but that was ok. After all, I really just needed a ball-park figure anyway. He shortly said, “About 1250 times.”

And then he said, “You are planning another blog, aren’t you? I don’t need to know now; I’ll read it when you get it done.” And with that he turned over and was asleep in his usual 15 seconds. I, of course, laid there for an hour ruminating how to structure the blog.

It all boils down to this: For each of the 1250 showers I have taken, I have been hit in the face each time with a stray spray of water when I switch the lever that routes the water from the bathtub spout up to the shower wand we use. It happens after I pull the shower curtain to encase the tub, kneel down to turn on the hot and cold water to get a nice warm balance and then throw that lever to send the water to the shower head. A light stream of water, always cold, smacks into my face before I can get my head out from over the bathtub and outside the curtain.

1,250 times I have put up with that. I can’t say “without complaint” because actually I have complained about it, but mostly to myself.

I guess mentioning it to Jerry this time was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. The next morning I marched in to the shower and after the usual preparations got into the dry tub, pulled the curtain, took the shower wand out of the holder and held it face down in the tub while I turned on the hot and cold water faucets. When I felt the water to be the right temp I put the wand back in its holder and took my shower.

There will be no 1251st time. I put a stop to it.

But what I don’t understand was how on earth I could let such a little irritating thing go on for 6 years! I’m a pretty laid-back person and don’t get ruffled too easily, but I’m still trying to figure out why I didn’t think of this sooner.

I suppose it is because I’m usually trying to solve big things -- like what to have for dinner, or when should I make a run to Costco, or to get the library books back to the library before they become overdue -- you know those things that just have to be managed in the running of a household. So in the scheme of things, a few cold drops in the face every few days just hadn’t seemed all that urgent.

Well, it’s in the past now, although I do have to tell you this: The spray did not disappear.

It now hits me in the face when I stand in the shower facing the shower head. I guess what I was getting when I knelt on the floor to turn on the water was simply the end of the errant spray. Now I get the beginning of it. And there is still no adjustment to the shower wand that removes it. Jerry suggested that I take my shower facing away from the water. That is not a good answer. Nor is taking a bath instead of a shower.

I just may have to call upon my laid-back disposition for another few years while I wait on my aging brain to come up with another idea. A new shower wand might work but they are not cheap and there are, unfortunately, no guarantees.