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August 09, 2004
Strange showers
Nothing is more dreadful than the hotel shower. I’ve been traveling for years, and I prefer staying with friends. Friends' showers are always different, but they’ll warn you about the strangeness of their shower.
“Watch out for the handles, they’re reversed.”
“Let the hot water run for a few minutes.”
“The water looks like blood, but that’s because of the human sacrifices from last night.”
You don’t get any warnings in hotel rooms. The pipes are always in arcane settings, labels in Gaelic. Some hotel showers have one lonely handle, others have ten. The ‘freezing water on the head’ lottery has a high probability of success, only to be upstaged by the boiling water scalding your toes. This road trip was a rapid succession of hotels, and each one was a dreaded experiment. It doesn’t help that you’re almost always half asleep, stumbling into the fluorescent-lit, slick tiled danger room with no caffeine. I also don’t get heat lamps. Do those really help at all? I feel like I’m a packaged meal at a fast food joint.
One place we stayed had a Jacuzzi tub with dual showers, one on each side. None of us used the Jacuzzi, and I was the only one to try dual showerheads. It took me about ten minutes just to figure out all the different specifications, including drainage. I also didn’t realize how difficult it would be to lather up with two showerheads. Normally, I step outside of the jets of water to soap up, but there was no place to move.
Also, three traveling gay men bring own set of issues for hotel showers. Not a single hotel shower really had any shelves or anything, and each of us had soaps, shampoos, and those little scrubby things. Obviously I don’t have shampoo, but I have a good soap. Shaved heads need love and care also.
Almost every morning I would be trying to reach for more soap, or maybe try to set down the scrubby thing. I’d knock over everything on the one crowded corner, which then begins the ridiculous nekkid foamy chase around a strange tub. Theoretically, it could be the start of a porn film, except nobody wants to see me squinting through lather, hunched over frantically trying to set all the dispensers upright again. This stressful event concludes with the confusion of trying to correctly turn off the shower, only succeeding in either turning off one temperature or the other. You’re hoping to end the process, only to get struck by a finale of freezing or boiling water.
Traveling is so great.
Posted by G at August 9, 2004 05:23 PM
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Comments
Stay at a Marriott or Sheraton :-)
Posted by: A Friend at August 9, 2004 08:18 PM
I can definatly relate to the hotel shower story. The dump we stayed at in New Orleans last year was horrible for either scalding or freezing you. By the end of the week we learned that when the pipes made that funny sound to jump out of the water stream.
Posted by: Mike at August 10, 2004 05:49 PM
LOL. I'm just picturing the shower scene, soap and shampoo and little scrubby things flying all about as you get alternately scalded and iced. I guess it happnes here in the First World too, huh? LOL.
Posted by: PatCH at August 11, 2004 07:06 AM
I keep hearing the voice in my head saying "wear flip-flops in the shower!" Leftovers from my days as a Navy brat and having to live in "overflow" family barracks with community showers. To this day, I make my kids wear rubber flip-flops in hotel showers. I think I need therapy. :o)
Posted by: Pua at August 11, 2004 11:47 AM
I totally forgot about the flip-flops. I also forgot to mention the ultra-slick tile floors that are designed to kill you as you exit the bath. They're probably good for mopping up blood.
Posted by: Glenn at August 11, 2004 07:14 PM