Washed up
I haven't had a bath since 2003.
This is not through laziness or poor hygiene, but by design. The last bath I took, and will probably ever take, was followed about 30 seconds later by an alarming attack of flashing lights inside my eyes, a rush of blood to the brain and me staggering through to my bedroom in order to ensure that if and when I did pass out I wouldn't bang my head by falling onto the floor.
The experience was so traumatic, even though it had passed in about half an hour, that I resolved to never put myself willingly into a position where I might suffer such an ordeal again. And luckily, given showers exist and will assuredly continue to exist for a good many years to come, there have always been alternative ways to keep clean that don't involve lying down in a tub of hot water.
It's unfortunate, because I always used to like baths - even when I was really young, when convention dictates you're supposed to hate them, especially those on a Sunday evening in order to get you spruced up for a return to school the following morning.
One of the happiest aspects of my one year in a university hall of residence (and there weren't many) was the discovery of quite the largest bath I had ever seen, in which I used to soak for a good hour or so of an evening while my neighbours were carousing in the junior common room downstairs. I don't think they ever found out about this. In fact I know they didn't, because one time I head them sincerely pondering my "absence" just outside the bathroom door, unaware I was a mere two metres away.
Later, when I lived in Aigburth in Liverpool, I would purposefully run a deep bath on Sunday nights, especially during winter when the place was always bitterly cold, and lie in it for ages, usually listening to a sequence of easy listening programmes on Radio 2. I acknowledge that this kind of behaviour, for a twentysomething, was hopelessly anachronistic. But I was living alone, and I did it because I could. Besides, I needed some way of keeping warm.
Now that pleasure is denied to me, and the same way some people can't drink beer sitting down, I can only wash standing up. Given there's a drought on, it's probably just as well. But what I've gained in efficiency, I've undoubtedly lost in quality of life.
This is not through laziness or poor hygiene, but by design. The last bath I took, and will probably ever take, was followed about 30 seconds later by an alarming attack of flashing lights inside my eyes, a rush of blood to the brain and me staggering through to my bedroom in order to ensure that if and when I did pass out I wouldn't bang my head by falling onto the floor.
The experience was so traumatic, even though it had passed in about half an hour, that I resolved to never put myself willingly into a position where I might suffer such an ordeal again. And luckily, given showers exist and will assuredly continue to exist for a good many years to come, there have always been alternative ways to keep clean that don't involve lying down in a tub of hot water.
It's unfortunate, because I always used to like baths - even when I was really young, when convention dictates you're supposed to hate them, especially those on a Sunday evening in order to get you spruced up for a return to school the following morning.
One of the happiest aspects of my one year in a university hall of residence (and there weren't many) was the discovery of quite the largest bath I had ever seen, in which I used to soak for a good hour or so of an evening while my neighbours were carousing in the junior common room downstairs. I don't think they ever found out about this. In fact I know they didn't, because one time I head them sincerely pondering my "absence" just outside the bathroom door, unaware I was a mere two metres away.
Later, when I lived in Aigburth in Liverpool, I would purposefully run a deep bath on Sunday nights, especially during winter when the place was always bitterly cold, and lie in it for ages, usually listening to a sequence of easy listening programmes on Radio 2. I acknowledge that this kind of behaviour, for a twentysomething, was hopelessly anachronistic. But I was living alone, and I did it because I could. Besides, I needed some way of keeping warm.
Now that pleasure is denied to me, and the same way some people can't drink beer sitting down, I can only wash standing up. Given there's a drought on, it's probably just as well. But what I've gained in efficiency, I've undoubtedly lost in quality of life.
posted by Alistair Myles at 8:10 pm
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