September 26, 2006 - Tuesday
Current mood: numb
Last night I stayed at my friend Misti's house. No big deal. I had all my stuff (except I forgot my pillow, but she had an extra), I made sure I set my alarm with plenty of time for me to get up and get ready in the morning. I ate dinner before I went...I was just looking forward to spending a relaxing evening in front of the television with one of my best friends...just like college (and virutally every other evening of my life right now).
Around 9:30, I decided I wanted to go take a shower...Again, no big deal. I brought all the necessities to the bathroom with me, paying careful attention not to forget anything.
I have a horribly wasteful habit of running the water for a few minutes before actually getting in the shower...I like the water to be nice and hot before I jump in. So I started the shower and proceeded to do whatever it is that one does while waiting for the water to warm up.
All of a sudden, I noticed that the atmosphere in the bathroom felt very heavy. I looked up and I was engulfed in a cloud of steam. It was so oppressive that I found it difficult to breathe...strange, I know. The mirrors were long gone, covered with that opaque white fog. And even the shower curtains were completely clouded.
At this point, I decided that the water was probably too hot for a normal human's skin. And although I do enjoy being slightly scalded when stepping into a steaming shower, I figured second degree burns and a trip to emergency would present more of an inconvenience than anything.
I approached the shower, pulled the curtain back, and extended my arm toward the faucet in an attempt to turn the water cooler, but just as my fingers reached the knob, I was sprayed in the face with searing water...this shower was not turning out like I had anticipated...and I wasn't even in it yet.
As I continued to struggle with the faucet, I had moved out of the line of the spraying shower head, and while I was saving my face (literally), water was still spraying all over the bathroom, soaking the toilet seat, toilet cover, and the floor next to the tub. I continued trying to turn the knob, straining to keep my face out of the stray water stream. Were my hands really so wet that I couldn't grip the stupid faucet and turn the water down? After a couple more minutes of struggling, I determined that the problem must not be with my hands, but instead, with the faucet itself.
I turned the water completely off in order to assess the situation. After much careful observation, I realized that while the faucet looked like a normal everyday, turn-in-a-clockwise-fashion-to-make-it-hotter spicket, but instead, you were to push the entire knob to the right or left, depending on your desired temperature...weird, I know.
Three minutes later, the water was at an appropriate degree, much of the steam had cleared, and the shower was as satisfactory as any other shower. And then I noticed something intriguing. Hanging from the shower head was a large plastic container filled with a silverish-clear liquid. Its large blue button was right at eye level, staring me in the face, commanding my attention. "Hmm," I thought, "that must be one of those cool soap dispensers like they have in those junk mail catalogs." After about 15 seconds of deliberating, my curiosity got the better of me and I pushed the button. I placed my hand under what I thought was the nozzle of the soap dispenser.
Nothing happened.
The thought occurred to me that this may in fact not be the soap dispenser I thought it was, and I looked at the back of the container.
"Automatic Shower Cleaner"
Oh great.
And not five seconds after I read the label on the back, I was sprayed, in the mouth, on the face, and all over with shower cleanser.
So after the shower from hell, I proceeded to do my normal post-shower routine, and then mopped up the floor and toilet seat that were still soaked from the afore-mentioned stray stream of water spraying from the shower head.
The moral of the story: Even if you enjoy regular showers, and consider yourself rather an expert at the task, it's probably a good idea to ask the host the essential workings of the shower in a foreign-bathroom situation.
Currently listening : Good Monsters By Jars of Clay Release date: 05 September, 2006
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