Bathtub philosophizing

There are only two good things about winter—basketball and hot showers. And since we are speaking of twos here, there are two ways to look at the activity of bathing. Some people consider it a chore and other people regard it as an opportunity to contemplate all of the world’s and their own problems.

According to tradition, kids hate to take a bath, but I never met one who did. They hate baths about as much as they hate swimming. However, unlike some adults, they don’t think of anything more in the shower than they usually do. They just like to play in the water.

What could be more fun than turning the tub into a slip-and-slide, or splashing water on the ceiling? We used to have more toys in the bathroom than we did upstairs.

You can easily identify adults who approach bathing as a practical task. They are the people who take a six-minute shower and have those awful water-saving devices hooked onto the shower heads. And they use the step-by-step method of washing. I’m not sure I trust those kind of bathers.

And then there are the rest of us. A bath is a chance for a few minutes of idyllic relaxation, soulful introspection and just plain peace in a warm room with the door locked against trivialities.

No one expects you to come out of the bathroom to answer the phone or the door. Even your kids don’t expect you to get out of the bathtub for unimportant things once they get old enough to realize that dripping, shivering mothers are likely to be dangerous.

So, there are those who enjoy bathing and those who just wash.
Since we are talking about twos here again, there are two other types of bathers—those who shower and those who fill the tub.
I can only see one advantage to filling the tub. You get to sit down. I won’t argue the finer points. I have never yet convinced tub-filler that showering was the superior method.
Some days in the shower I indulge my imagination and pretend that I have enough money and space to build the perfect shower. (Talk about weighty matters.)
The consummate shower would have at least four shower heads. One for front, one for back, one for shampooing the hair and one for the legs. It would have a seat in the middle so that you could rest with your chin in your hand while you pondered the meaning of life, and since the primary purpose of time spent in the shower is the weighing of thoughts, the shower should be able to do all the work.

It should run water heated to precisely the right temperature for a few minutes, and then it should
begin to add soap—you know, like those carwash sprayers. Then after soap, shampoo would be nice for a few minutes, and then more water.

Finally it could mix a little bath oil into the final rinse and most importantlythe quintessential shower would never run out of hot water.

I suppose it would take a computer to customize each individual’s shower by time, temperature and type of soap, but that shouldn’t be a problem technically. Who of the great thinkers would count the cost?

I have seen some high-tech showers in those high-end-house magazines. The more introspective of their owners must already have installed the “think-tank.”

If a few more of us were acquainted with the real purpose for showering, just imagine how much we could all learn and understand. We just need a few more people to understand the real reason for bathing. We could just possibly overcome the brain drain.