Our master bath has this horrible shower door, one of those things that’s been broken so long you just get used to it being the way it is, Gerry rigging it with whatever is to-hand, because the only way to fix it is to do a total renovation.
It’s one of those folding doors where you push on the center and it opens – which the cat has figured out and gives her happy access to the “special” shower water that is left behind for her personal sipping pleasure. When you’re in the shower, you simply push the middle again, from the inside, and it shuts, theoretically, for the duration of your shower.
However, our door is missing a brace that straddled the top of the bending portion of the door, so that it doesn’t stay closed. Who knows where the missing piece went; maybe it was never there. We used a sturdy rubber band from a bunch of asparagus for a while, which disappeared while I was away for a couple of weeks recently, and was replaced by my ever-resourceful/creative husband, Joe, with a wooden chopstick, which when slammed into the door slot provides enough of a seal for the door to remain closed. Unless, that is, you put any sort of pressure on the inner shower wall, like say, when you lean your back against it to shave your legs – admittedly, not that often; it is barely spring after all – and you brace your leg on the opposite wall for easy access for shaving. Then the bloody door pops open abruptly, bashing your leg, and sending the chopstick flying, almost certainly outside the shower where you have to step out to retrieve it, dripping all over the floor. But still, it’s mostly just an annoyance, nothing life-threatening. And typically, the second you step out of the shower, your curses washing down the drain behind you, the irritation is forgotten until the next time.
Until today. It’s supposed to be sunny this weekend in the Pacific Northwest, so I decided to shave my hairy Hobbit legs, anticipating modest exposure. And of course, the door buckled open when I assumed my desired shaving pose. I carefully repositioned the chopstick and leaned my body in to slam the door shut, aware at the last second that one of my fresh pencil eraser-sized nipples was brushing against the closing jaws of the middle portion of the door, barely escaping being pinched off. Whereupon I immediately played out a “What if?” scenario in my head, where the door did nip it off, I quickly bandage my blood-spouting breast, recover the nipple and wisely, calmly fill a container with ice to carry it to the ER, where I’m hoping they can reattach the little bugger, like a toe or finger. If they can’t, I think of alternatives: a prosthetic silicone nipple, a shiny studded piercing, or a bionic one that glows. And changes colors. Maybe a large X tattooed over the missing protuberance? Anything, really, to avoid the inevitable song-in-the-making I can hear Joe working on, something upbeat, toe-tapping, with a banjo, along the lines of “Lori, my love, my one-nippled gal…”
It’s one of those folding doors where you push on the center and it opens – which the cat has figured out and gives her happy access to the “special” shower water that is left behind for her personal sipping pleasure. When you’re in the shower, you simply push the middle again, from the inside, and it shuts, theoretically, for the duration of your shower.
However, our door is missing a brace that straddled the top of the bending portion of the door, so that it doesn’t stay closed. Who knows where the missing piece went; maybe it was never there. We used a sturdy rubber band from a bunch of asparagus for a while, which disappeared while I was away for a couple of weeks recently, and was replaced by my ever-resourceful/creative husband, Joe, with a wooden chopstick, which when slammed into the door slot provides enough of a seal for the door to remain closed. Unless, that is, you put any sort of pressure on the inner shower wall, like say, when you lean your back against it to shave your legs – admittedly, not that often; it is barely spring after all – and you brace your leg on the opposite wall for easy access for shaving. Then the bloody door pops open abruptly, bashing your leg, and sending the chopstick flying, almost certainly outside the shower where you have to step out to retrieve it, dripping all over the floor. But still, it’s mostly just an annoyance, nothing life-threatening. And typically, the second you step out of the shower, your curses washing down the drain behind you, the irritation is forgotten until the next time.
Until today. It’s supposed to be sunny this weekend in the Pacific Northwest, so I decided to shave my hairy Hobbit legs, anticipating modest exposure. And of course, the door buckled open when I assumed my desired shaving pose. I carefully repositioned the chopstick and leaned my body in to slam the door shut, aware at the last second that one of my fresh pencil eraser-sized nipples was brushing against the closing jaws of the middle portion of the door, barely escaping being pinched off. Whereupon I immediately played out a “What if?” scenario in my head, where the door did nip it off, I quickly bandage my blood-spouting breast, recover the nipple and wisely, calmly fill a container with ice to carry it to the ER, where I’m hoping they can reattach the little bugger, like a toe or finger. If they can’t, I think of alternatives: a prosthetic silicone nipple, a shiny studded piercing, or a bionic one that glows. And changes colors. Maybe a large X tattooed over the missing protuberance? Anything, really, to avoid the inevitable song-in-the-making I can hear Joe working on, something upbeat, toe-tapping, with a banjo, along the lines of “Lori, my love, my one-nippled gal…”
RSS Feed