I rarely have a shower when I stay at my beloved's
house.... Sorry, that sounds disgusting! What I mean is, because we live
almost next door to each other, it's much easier to go home and wash
there. However, it was one of those lovely, lazy Sunday mornings today,
with no reason to get up before 10.30, so I thought I'd risk it.
"What's to risk?" I hear you ask.
Ah, well... his shower hates me. It was born to a single-parent
household, and it knows that I'm not really its mummy. So it sulks, and
won't do what I ask. "It always works fine for me," my beloved
stated, mystified. But he only spends about 20 seconds in there with the
setting on cool, whereas I like 20 minutes on hot. I suppose that's the
equivalent of demanding that it spring cleans its room, when all that's usually
expected of it is that it leaves its dirty plates out on the landing. Anyway,
all it was prepared to do for me this morning was aim a couple of rather
pathetic, icy trickles of water at the wall, combined with a weak spray of scalding
hot in the other direction. Since it has a rather brief attention span, I
rapidly soaped and swore, hoping that nothing from downstairs would distract it
and cause it to disappear altogether. It must be the only shower in the
country with ADHD.
Part of the problem, I suspect, is that it is an
only child; unlike my shower it has never experienced the sibling
rivalry provided by an older bathtub. There is a certain air of
competition in my bathroom, as my bath and shower metaphorically sit up
straight and try to attract my attention with their good behaviour and eagerness
to please. And I must say, they get on very well together, especially
now. Before I got my beautiful new combi-boiler, having a bath required
so much advance planning that, by the time the water was hot enough, I'd gone
off the idea. Now, though, I can run as much hot water as I like,
whenever I like! My bath no longer feels miserable and neglected, and my
shower has to be on her best behaviour all the time, since she now has some
real competition.
We decided in the end that his shower probably needed
a bit of attention, so we soaked it in bleach and poked it with a pin,
whereupon it started behaving in a much more grown-up, gentlemanly
fashion. Tough love.
