Book of June

Did you ever see the movie Psycho? Even if you haven’t, I imagine at this point you’re aware there’s a shower scene. I tell you this not because I’ve been hacked to bits in my shower, which I might have led with, but because if you’ve seen the movie, you might recall the odd joyfulness Janet Leigh has when she first gets into said shower.

She doesn’t leave with the same joy. Spoiler alert. That’s what Norman Bates said.

Anyway, it’s weird. She’s all smiling and tossing her head and you kind of think, who has this much fun showering?

All this talk of showering is reminding me of another story that’s bothered me now for 19 years, and I know I’ve told it to you before. In the year 2000, I ran a marathon as part of a fundraiser for AIDS Project Los Angeles. They trained me for six months, and I raised a bunch of funds for them, and this was preblog so I had to go out and earn the money the old-fashioned way, on my knees. But anyway, after six months of rigorous training and the best calves I’ve ever had, they sent us to Chicago where we all emailed another girl and also ran the marathon.

That evening, the APLA people threw us a party, unfortunately located up some stairs, and I don’t know if you’ve ever, oh, run 26.2 miles at once but lemme tell you. Three hours later, you do not want to go up any goddamn stairs. I remember Marvin saying he just stayed there a bit and watched everyone crab walk up them.

The point is, I was having some well-deserved snacks at the party when another runner said, “Wasn’t the shower back at the hotel great? That was the second-best shower I’ve ever had in my life.”

…!

IT HAUNTS ME. Why didn’t I ask him? The only thing I can imagine is that once he mud-wrestled a pig after eight days in the woods.

Anyway.

Yesterday, I took a shower, which was the whole point of this diatribe. And I like to imagine myself tossing my head happily the way Janet Leigh did. I have (had) one of those showerheads that has the different settings, and I act so highfalutin, like everyone doesn’t have one of those now. I also have automatic windows on my car! {June must be RICH!}

I noticed, yesterday in the shower, that the top of the twisty settings thing on my showerhead, the twisty thing I never use because I’ve always been happy and tossing my head with the setting I use, which is “The water pours on you steadily so you can shower,” was …leaking. Like, water was coming out of the part that twists.

Naturally, being the water engineer that I am, and is that even a thing? I twisted the showerhead, and

Oh my god, water was everywhere, and also I think that’s a real picture up there of a tsunami and that’s horrifying.

Dude, water. Water was squirting ALL OVER YONDER. It was an EXPLOSION of water.

I stopped Janet Leighing in the shower and started, well, Janet Leighing in the shower. I went from happy head toss to screeching like a billy goat. I had to shower at the speed of sound while water screeched around my bathroom, and when I got out, shaken not stirred, the entire medicine cabinet was drenched. The WALLS, which are mostly tile thank god, were dripping like Amityville Horror. Later that morning I was happy to discover the toilet paper roll had also been drenched. It was like a poor man’s bidet up in there.

So that was my relaxing morning, which led to a relaxing lunch hour of going to Lowe’s, and a relaxing evening of changing a showerhead, which FYI is not that hard.

I realize things could have been worse, and some psycho in a man bun could have offed me, but it was unpleasant just the same.

Splash at you later,
June