Nothing is Perfect

A concerned reader sent me this email:

“I read this on your blog

“then make a mad dash to get dressed, dripping water through the house and collapsing, panting, on the bed because it’s a straight uphill climb to where my clothes are.”

Do you not have a shower in the ensuite bathroom?

curious on St. Joe”

Dear Curious:

I wasn’t going to tell the story of the ensuite bathroom shower because I wanted to choose carefully the things about which I whine and complain, lest I become known as one of those “whiny complainy” people. Because really: all things considered, life is pretty damn good. Babby on the way; jobs that pay well enough to buy a townhouse; townhouse; fairly smooth move that is now over.

But since you asked.

When I saw the townhouse the first and only time before moving in, I was entranced by the ensuite bathroom and its shower stall. It’s glass-walled and hexagonal, with a magnetic door closure. It had a lovely looking shower head as well; large and powerful looking. I held on to this idea of the shower for the 6 weeks between purchase and possession. I packed a special bag with showering supplies, to be the bag of first response on moving in, because showers are very important to me. I like them hot, hard and lengthy.

Ahem.

After we’d moved in, Saint Aardvark actually ended up taking the first shower. He had been helping the movers and was far sweatier than me, plus it had been raining all day. I had been in the kitchen, warming my toes at the under-sink heating vent (see? BLESSED we are) so I figured he could go first. He showered without comment and we ate our pizza and then, before collapsing into bed, I decided I would shower as well.

“Um, so,” said SA.
“Yessss,” I said, towel over arm, mid-step into the bathroom.
“The shower…it’s not ideal.”
I stopped in my tracks. “What do you mean?”
“Well, the shower head? First of all, he took the big shower head with him….”
I went into the bathroom and looked. Sure enough, there was a small, normal shower head where the previous one had been. Fair enough – probably this was the shower head that came with the place. I didn’t want previous-owner-asshat man’s shower head anyway.
“OK,” I said.
“So, the thing is,” hemmed SA, “the thing is that the shower head kind of points directly at the shower door?”
“Uh huh…”
“And so, it’s kind of tricky, to y’know, get in…”

The problem is two-fold.

Fold Number One: The water control is one lever, meaning you go from OFF to HOT in one big whirl around the dial. There is no tub, so there is no letting the water heat up while it runs from a tap and then pulling the little plug thingee to make it shower. It just showers cold until it warms up, which doesn’t happen immediately, nor should it.
however:
Fold Number Two: The non-adjustable shower head does, indeed, point directly at the shower door, or, as logic will have it, directly into the bathroom if the shower door is open. Which it will be if you are turning on the water. Because how else are you going to grab the lever? By putting your hand through the glass?

What ensues is a cold shower (perhaps while you are still clothed!) as a little treat before you actually get IN the shower.

Able to see this chain of events but unable to control myself, I opened the shower door and cranked the water up to HOT. It sprayed COLD right at me. I yelled and slammed the shower door shut, my toes in a puddle on the bathroom floor. I stared through the shower door at the water as it ran and became hotter. Steam began to form. I was paralyzed with indecision. I stood some more. I said, loudly, “This is the stupidest fucking thing I have EVER SEEN.” Saint Aardvark grunted his agreement from his position on the bed. I eventually took off my clothes, opened the door and jumped in the shower, all as quickly as I could, but still could not avoid having the shower baptize our bathroom.

Needless to say, this shower did not relax me. It did, however, get me and the bathroom clean.

The following day, on a big expedition in our rental car, we bought a shower head at this huge, modern Canadian Tire right on the highway. The shower head had a big, shiny silver effect and an adjustable arm. I didn’t care, though. I was not showering in that shower ever again. EVER! DO YOU HEAR ME? I sulkily moved all my bathroom whatnot down to the second floor bathroom. I had a lovely bath there (which I was able to get out of), then a shower to follow up & rinse off the grit. This is when I discovered the problem with the second shower. Also two-fold.

Fold Number One: Of course, this shower is above a bath so has the tap/shower option. But when you pull the switch to go from tap to shower, the shower makes a high-pitched squealing noise. Like Deliverance or the beginning of the Snoop Dogg song where he goes “sneeeeeooooooooooooooop!” Like that. You have to toggle the water control further towards cold for a minute, then back to hot, to sort of convince the shower that “hot” is not “bad,” that “hot” can be “good.” Do I have the time or inclination to coddle a shower? No, I do not.

Fold Number Two: Once you’ve settled with the shower on just what constitutes quiet and hot, you realize: the water coming out of the shower is obviously meant for someone who has no skin and who cries watching “Starting Over.” Because if it was meant for someone who wanted to say, GET CLEAN, then the force of the water would necessarily be stronger than your average 6 week Vancouver drizzle.

If a shower is hot, hard and lengthy, I will become clean, invigorated and relaxed. If a shower is the equivalent of someone tapping me on the shoulder and whispering, “hey? hey? how’s it going? hey?” then I will become ENRAGED.

We put the new Canadian Tire super shiny shower head on the second floor shower, which took care of the squealing but increased the surface area of the water even more so that the Vancouver drizzle effect turned into more of a person-who-spits-when-he-talks effect. Ask my co-workers how cranky I was.

On Tuesday after work I tried to buy a new shower head downtown. Sears, the Bay and London Drugs all laughed in my face.

On Wednesday during work I googled for shower heads. I liked this one the best
because life is too short for bad showers. I suspect it is also too long for me to spend $85 on a shower head by mail, but whatever. German engineering, etc.

On Thursday after work, because we have no car so cannot travel to the Home Depot or Rona or Superstore to properly select a shower head, I tried the Canadian Tire across from our house, which has a very old-school vibe to it; narrow isles crammed with stuff, only one till, the fabulous smell of motor oil and rubber. I didn’t have much hope for its shower head selection but miraculously, I found no fewer than 10 shower heads to choose from. New-school is not always better. I bought one for $6.99 and the squealing is now back, but there is an “ass pounding” setting (SA’s words), a wimpy drizzle setting and a normal, how-about-we-saturate-your-hair-with-water-in-less-than-30-minutes setting, so I’m happy.

If the worst thing that happens is I start the day -every day- with Snoop Dogg in my head? That’s not the worst thing that can happen.

And the ensuite shower and whoever designed it can bite my fat behind.

Love,
Cheesefairy.