A tale of two showers

Warning to friends and family who sometimes come to visit: this entry is not for your eyes. Do not read it.

The house I live in has two showers. Shower number one is a proper shower, standing all by itself in a separate shower room, with its nice semi-circular see-through shower cabin with sliding doors, a shower head that can be adjusted in various ways and that stays put once adjusted, lots of pressure, the right kind of ventilation, and wooden floors that are a joy to walk on. Normally, I start my workday with a short but very pleasant shower in shower number one. It takes me about two seconds to get the temperature and pressure just right (the two are co-dependant: if you increase the pressure, you also have to increase the temperature to achieve the same sensation, in the same way as the wind-chill factor links wind and the sensation of cold), and then I spend somewhere between 3 and 7 minutes, just enjoying the shower and waking up.

There is only one disadvantage to shower number one: it is right next to the guest room. This means (he intones, with the type of voice that is normally used for the trailers of Hollywood horror movies where they try to compensate for the lack of plot by increasing the advertising budget) that when we have guests, I "magnanimously" let them use it, while I am reduced to using shower number two. Shower number two is in fact not really a shower, but a bath with a showerhead attached to the wall at the far end (the end where the taps are), a shower curtain that gets in the way (I hate the way it can cling to your body, and especially if the water on it has already gone cold), poor adjustment facilities (at its very highest, it just about comes level with my neck, which means I have to squat down to rinse my face and head), very little pressure and tiles with a very practical but not exactly sensual anti-slip surface.

Now you might think that I sound like a spoilt and pampered child, but as a parent, I know how important it is for children to express, not suppress, their feelings, and I think this is probably true for adults as well. This is not to say, of course, that you should necessarily act on those feelings. Acknowledging how you feel about something in fact often makes it unnecessary to take any action whatsoever. In my case, I hope that whining publicly about the loss of my lovely, wonderful morning shower will help me accept the situation more easily.

[clock ticking, time passing slowly ...] Nope, not working.

So on to the second line of defense, which is to imagine (but not carry out) the action you might take as a result of those feelings, the idea being that putting these ideas into words will help you see how stupid they are which - again - makes it unnecessary to do anything. In my case, the most logical action would be to kick the guests out.

[clock ticking, time passing slowly, me imagining dragging the guests physically out of the house ...] Yep! That makes me feel a lot better.

There is just one problem with expressing your feelings: it might be good for you on a personal, individual level, but your social life may suffer. Assuming that virtually no-one heeded the warning at the beginning of this blog (a very likely scenario) I can now count on flak/fall-out from ex-readers who used to stay at my place. Which is a shame, because I did enjoy their company, in spite of the shower situation.

I would take a shower to calm my nerves, but I have guests ....