I am having a problem with my showerhead. I should just call my landlord, but it creeps me out to have the maintenance man in my house when I'm gone. Come to think of it, it creeps me out to have him in my house when I am here too! I don't like people I don't know in my private space, especially my shower.
Unfortunately I seem to be incapable of fixing the problem. When I turn on the shower I only get about 3 seconds of spray from the nozzle and then just a trickle. Weirder still, I get MORE of a trickle if I turn the shower on 1/2 way, which means that a lot of water pours into the bathtub. Next thing I know I'm practically swimming while trying to rinse the shampoo from my hair under the trickling showerhead, which alternates between freezing and scalding. Eventually I end up on my knees in the tub with my head stuck under the faucet, uttering words that I should not even know, let alone verbalize.
Showering this way stirs many memories of "bathing" adventures in Europe. I keenly remember my first time. The shower was in a little closet down the hall from my hotel room. I'm pretty sure there was no lock on the door; there was also no shower curtain and the showerhead was not attached to the wall, which made it difficult to soap up and rinse. How are you supposed to scrub when you're trying to control an errant nozzle? My least favorite experience was the youth hostel in Prague. It was like my junior high gym, which was traumatic enough when I was a kid, except this time it was co-ed, and I was not only worried that someone would see me naked, but that someone would steal my backpack, which obviously could not be in the shower with me. Steph and I both hated the shower on the ferry from Athens to Crete. And I was NOT thrilled with the bathroom sharing experience on the island of Patmos. Just as I was opening the unlocked bathroom door, a man walked out completely NAKED. If I remember right he was uncircumcised and very proud of himself!
Lyndel and I also endured bad showers in Prague and I had to take a photo of her the first time she saw a European shower in Vienna. The look on her face was priceless! In Paris, Rhonda and I scored a room with a shower at the "Peace & Love Youth Hostel", (we also scored second hand marijuana smoke and a roommate, but I digress.) We could not even turn around in the shower, it was THAT small, but at least we didn't have to walk down the hall! It only got worse from there and ended at the underground hotel beneath Charles de Gaulle Airport. Aside from the fact that we had to share a "French double bed", (we're not THAT close) we had to deal with the shower. It was actually in the same room as the toilet and sink, but there was no tub and nothing to separate it from the rest of the room. Once again there was no curtain (can someone please explain this weird tradition to me?) and the drain was in the middle of the floor. By the end of the shower the entire room was wet. Who had this brilliant design idea??? Is this how Europeans clean their bathrooms? Or are showers just not that important to them since they don't use them very often? ;)
Oh the memories. Funny as they are I am American through and through and I like, no LOVE American showers. That's why I will end up calling the landlord and suffering through the creepiness of having someone I don't know in my personal space. I need full spray from a showerhead that is attached to the wall. I'm boycotting European showers in the US of A. Vive la American showers!!
Unfortunately I seem to be incapable of fixing the problem. When I turn on the shower I only get about 3 seconds of spray from the nozzle and then just a trickle. Weirder still, I get MORE of a trickle if I turn the shower on 1/2 way, which means that a lot of water pours into the bathtub. Next thing I know I'm practically swimming while trying to rinse the shampoo from my hair under the trickling showerhead, which alternates between freezing and scalding. Eventually I end up on my knees in the tub with my head stuck under the faucet, uttering words that I should not even know, let alone verbalize.
Showering this way stirs many memories of "bathing" adventures in Europe. I keenly remember my first time. The shower was in a little closet down the hall from my hotel room. I'm pretty sure there was no lock on the door; there was also no shower curtain and the showerhead was not attached to the wall, which made it difficult to soap up and rinse. How are you supposed to scrub when you're trying to control an errant nozzle? My least favorite experience was the youth hostel in Prague. It was like my junior high gym, which was traumatic enough when I was a kid, except this time it was co-ed, and I was not only worried that someone would see me naked, but that someone would steal my backpack, which obviously could not be in the shower with me. Steph and I both hated the shower on the ferry from Athens to Crete. And I was NOT thrilled with the bathroom sharing experience on the island of Patmos. Just as I was opening the unlocked bathroom door, a man walked out completely NAKED. If I remember right he was uncircumcised and very proud of himself!
Lyndel and I also endured bad showers in Prague and I had to take a photo of her the first time she saw a European shower in Vienna. The look on her face was priceless! In Paris, Rhonda and I scored a room with a shower at the "Peace & Love Youth Hostel", (we also scored second hand marijuana smoke and a roommate, but I digress.) We could not even turn around in the shower, it was THAT small, but at least we didn't have to walk down the hall! It only got worse from there and ended at the underground hotel beneath Charles de Gaulle Airport. Aside from the fact that we had to share a "French double bed", (we're not THAT close) we had to deal with the shower. It was actually in the same room as the toilet and sink, but there was no tub and nothing to separate it from the rest of the room. Once again there was no curtain (can someone please explain this weird tradition to me?) and the drain was in the middle of the floor. By the end of the shower the entire room was wet. Who had this brilliant design idea??? Is this how Europeans clean their bathrooms? Or are showers just not that important to them since they don't use them very often? ;)
Oh the memories. Funny as they are I am American through and through and I like, no LOVE American showers. That's why I will end up calling the landlord and suffering through the creepiness of having someone I don't know in my personal space. I need full spray from a showerhead that is attached to the wall. I'm boycotting European showers in the US of A. Vive la American showers!!
