On Taking a Shower

I don’t know what it is with me and taking showers. I’ve never really enjoyed taking a bath. I like being clean, but taking a bath is just one of those annoying chores that you do every day. I think it’s because I’m a big picture person, and all those daily things that you have to do to function (like taking a shower and eating) are just constant nuisances that cloud my thinking space. Do you know what I could be doing with all those hours I’ve spent showering? (Probably just sleeping or listening to pop music, but, ya know. . .the principle. . .)

Once you take a shower for the day, you can’t just check it off of your things to do like you can finishing a paper for work or going by the bank. Nope. If you take a shower, you’re still gonna be dirty again in the next 24 hours. (Or, if you live in Panama, less than 24.) So there’s that. You gotta do it every day, it takes up time, and it’s not even fun to do. In order to take a bath, you have to take off all your clothes, bathe with soap and all of that, and then dry off and put on MORE clothes that are just going to get dirty again. There are other toiletries involved. Deoderant, lotion, shampoo, whatever. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I bathe regularly because I enjoy being clean, but I don’t like bathing!

So where did this observation come from? After a sweaty morning pasearing around Santa Fe with my host mom, I came home, took a nap, and then realized I was too dirty to continue living my life until I had bathed. I never liked bathing, but my reluctance is compounded by the fact that bathing now involves dumping a bowl of cold water over my head/shoulders. Every day. If it’s a school day, that means at 5:30 or 6 in the morning, the first thing I do is experience this, my Panamanian bucket shower. I actually hop around a little bit every time the cold water hits me for the first time. I don’t know why, it’s a knee jerk reaction. It’s not gonna make the water any warmer.

The good news is that, if this is the hardest part of my life right now, I’m in pretty good shape, right? Hey, I have Wi-Fi, remember? That’s all that matters. What more could you want?

I'm a grown-up. I take showers, I swear.