SHEsaysWITHaSMILE.blogspot.com

and relative to the shower in our home; which is literally perfect!  i mean, absolute perfection when it comes to water pressure and temperature control and curtain.  

compared to the shower in our home; every other shower, in anyone's home, anywhere that we have ever visited, any motel or hotel..    all other showers suck.

it only has to do with determining to what degree each shower sucks.

sometimes, it's close, within a few degrees of perfection, but not perfect like ours.

other times..

well, other times

and, i am not,   -that is, i am like the polar opposite of an exhibitionist.   so, 

1.  i did not take a selfie of my horrifying shower experience to share with the public at large (or to even share with my sister!  -but it is exactly my sister that i dedicate this post to)  in truth, i am still embarrassed and red in the face when i realize how omniscient; omnipresent our God is, and

2. i am not sharing this experience as any kind of attention-getting device

rather, 

God has designed me in such a way, that if i don't get it out..

      "get out!  get out of (me!)!"  via writing.    my minor internal, and otherwise private, embarrassing experience will grow fast and tall and wide as a bamboo forest, and then there will eventually be overcrowding, which only a wild fire can extinguish or control.. 

that shared and understood, 

here's what happen:

k.   -here are some details that are not unimportant, and must be factored in to fully appreciate what i have to share

i am 56 years old and 5'3.

wait..  let me be a little more specific:   i am 56 year old female; i weigh 150lb,  -give or take (and what 56 year old woman doesn't lean more toward take than give...  -write).    i have never had botox, or any kind of plastic surgery.  i take long walks, yes..  my heart is fit; yes.   but i don't really, say..   you know,   -exercise in a way that results in a fit 'physical body.'

i was born in 1966..  and raised in the bay area of California, USA..   so, my 'physical self image'   -despite the pathetic counter-attacks on the silver screen & magazine & tv shock and awe campaign defining what female beauty is..

well, bottom line..

you are not going to find me parading proudly in a bathing suit on the catwalks of any given  -anything; any time soon.    

i barely    ( bottom line; barely.. the potential puns!)  feel comfortable in the birthday suit God gave me, even when i am the only one in the bathroom!     i can pretend like the best of them, yes.. but i am aware i am pretending..  i am aware i am working so hard to override..

anyway..  that brings us to the first   -but not last-   thing i look at and assess when i am about to take a shower in any shower other than our own...

the door.  or curtain.

and write away, in the shower experience i am about to describe

of 'frickin' coarse!'   /spelling intentional

the door is a GIANT CLEAR GLASS DOOR WINDOW.       

now, my mother raised me not to use the word 'hate'      "hate is a very strong word... blah, blah.."

so, give me a minute or two here...

thank you.

my very, most, least favorite shower door is: the entirely clear glass shower door that was before me.   

i will not, here and now, explain to all the novices and ignoramus' how clear glass shower doors became popular in the market place at the exact same time, camera's being everywhere..  and 'fire alarms'  and 'carbon monoxide' alarms became mandatory.   i would not self-describe as a conspiracy theorist, but i have no problem going on record as being highly and very suspicious

so,    -especially if you are good with math: 

add together a non-quantifiable, but significant amount of self-consciousness, (X) with a GIANT ENTIRELY CLEAR, VERY CLEAN AND SEE-THROUGH, WINDOW SHOWER DOOR, (XX);

and an otherwise foreign shower being used for the first time  (Y?)

and!  as previously mentioned, i am 5'3.

    -most regular tubs, (tub/showers) for most all of my life..    they were easy to step in and out of..  13/14 inches high, and you barely had to make any effort to step over and in..

i'm not sure about the who, when, what, Y, but the shower i was about to step in, had a tub that must of been...

    /let me re-create the experience in private here to give a true estimate...

the tub of this particular shower was  ....   ?  and the height of the shower head itself! well, it was positioned for a person much taller than i am; much!

 i did automatically start looking around for a portable stepping stool..     how am i supposed to get in this thing and adjust the shower head?

  -there was no stepping stool in the bathroom.   the thought of having to put all my clothes back on and go out to the living room and ask someone for one was just too much

the advantage of being 56...   is the amount of years of Christian training..  so i looked at the mountain before me, and i did the sign of the cross, and i said,  'not in my own strength!'

which is a holler for help to the holy spirit within.

i reached for something to grab onto with my left hand..    and there was nothing really..  so i kind of anchored my hand, solid as i could against the wall

my write hand held the half-way open 

 GIANT ENTIRELY CLEAR, VERY CLEAN AND SEE-THROUGH, WINDOW SHOWER DOOR, 

and i used gravity, effort to leap up and onto 

"ouch!  ouch!  ouch!  ouch!"    -because, let me explain here, that when you have a mountain high tub WITH a GIANT ENTIRELY CLEAR, VERY CLEAN AND SEE-THROUGH, WINDOW SHOWER DOOR,  -

when your bare feet hit metal tracks, instead of soft, wonderful porcelain, for example..

"not in my own strength!"    

write about then, with the shock of my bare feet landing on metal tracks,  i lost my balance a little..

my brain knew..    if you fall backward, you will crack your head open on the floor and have to be rescued while in your birthday suit

and so it was my heart that knew,    -reach..... r-e--a----c-----h for the shower head...

  -the shower head in our home shower, is   -approx. at the 6' feet mark, and it is flexible!  and it is perfect.     "i love you!"   i can reach it all by myself without a stepping stool.

the shower head location in the shower of horror...    honestly..  it would be hard to exaggerate just how unrealistic

you would need a stepping stool to get in, but a ladder to reach the shower head

i had to kind of...  jump!   -jump up to reach and grab onto the shower head to prevent myself from falling backward

and it is in this very moment...    bare naked, with one hand grabbing for the shower head at 9 feet...  my bare feet trying to avoid the metal tracks on the tub, my ego trying to avoid rescue, my raw, natural, unplastic~surgeried boobs danglin'; my i-love-good-food-and-drinks stomach bouncin'; my bowling pin thigh cellulite jigglin'; 

literally!

the only thing that prevented me from falling apart and crying

was the instant use of my imagination.

and when i used my imagination to see my sister   -see me, in this highly embarrassing, entirely humbling, awkward situation

i could literally hear her laughing...    i could hear the sound of her contagious and uncontrollable laughter, and i could see her doubled-over, and i could see, with my imagination, how she would pee her pants..  and tears would be streaming down from her eyes..

and that is what saved me.

so, "Thank You! Keeshie!"        -as the lyrics go,   "Life gave me you for ups and downs..  God gave me you for the days of doubt.   And when I think I lost my way..  There are no words here left to say...  It's true.  It's true.  God gave me you."

***

speaking of...

***

a very big public "THANK YOU!" here to my sexy..

if you look the word 'counter-productive' up in the dictionary,   -what it should say is this:

water-saving shower heads   and/or  water-saving toilets.

  -because, while the intention may have been noble; the results are very VERY counter-productive.

people are flushing water saving toilets, 3 or 4 or 5 times, instead of one.

and people are having to either stand in the shower 5 times as long to rinse the shampoo out of their hair because of those stupid water saving shower heads

or, if you are blessed with a wonderful and understanding husband like i am

    -the shower head can be (temporarily) removed at any given hotel so that you can actually rinse the soap off your body, the shampoo and conditioner out of your hair in a manner of minutes.

i have written on the topic a few times now, so i will provide the upshot based on my personal traveling experiences

to date it is wildly, painfully apparent that only men have designed motel and hotel and resort showers/bathrooms.   

this is not an anti-men post by any means..     

if only, exclusively,  women designed the bathrooms/showers in motel, hotels and resorts, there would always be a place to place PERSONAL shampoo, conditioners, shaving cream, soaps and razors somewhere WITHIN the shower area itself.  who can use the 2oz freebies except for an emergency?  we bring our overpriced, oversized, stylist recommended hair and skin products  -while men can often shampoo with handsoap, and not even worry about conditioning, or shaving 12 different body parts...

goodness.  it's 2022, and i'm writing like it's 1999

forgive;

the point is this..  in addition to a beautifully designed privacy curtain or heavily stained-glass-ish window door; every shower, every where needs decent water pressure, needs a place to put personal, regular sized hair and skin products, needs designed so that you can safely enter and exit; needs a non-slip something on the floor;  needs the shower head within reach of an average fan or coach, not NBA player.   -and a leg rest..   prementioned, but... when you shave your legs...

everyone..  go shave your legs in a hotel shower..

my point has been made.

in, I know, .... Jesus only had a mangers' name..      amen.