European Showers

I like Europe.  But among some other things that may be of greater importance, there is one thing that Europeans do not do well; showers.  I am not referring to the hygiene of Europe’s residents.  I am referring to the physical location where one is cleansed beneath running water.  Given all their other attributes worth extolling, I don’t understand why showers are such an issue.  Let me explain…

A friend of mine, lets call him Grady, frequently likes to bring up while we are among people that I tried to kill him while we were in The Netherlands.  That is not exactly true.  His near-death experience was simply an unintended consequence of the European shower.  Myself, Grady and his brother, lets call him Bob, shared a room while visiting The Netherlands; Utrecht to be specific.  I use Magic Shave for the purposes of shaving, which mandates use of a spatula. It is not the kind of spatula used for cooking but is more or less a small-scale butter knife without the serrated edges.  I use the spatula to remove the Magic Shave from my face, and typically do so while in the shower.  It was no different in Utrecht.  So why I am accused of attempted manslaughter?

European hotels, or at least this one, omitted a few things from the room that are typical in America.  One of the omissions was some type of ledge or horizontal surface in the shower; something to put soap or shampoo on while they are not being used.  Minus this apparent luxury, I tried to balance the items I brought with me, including my spatula, across the knobs in the shower.  However, once I left the shower, I forgot about my spatula and left it across the knobs in the shower.  When Grady followed me in the shower, I guess he did not notice it at first.  So, it was much to my surprise and concern when I heard screams from inside the bathroom, “Oh no, a knife!!!”  I had always assumed the infamous scene from the Hitchcock movie Psycho was complete fiction, and I could not see any other reason for Grady to be screaming about a knife while in the bathroom by himself.  After Bob and I inquired about Grady’s welfare (both physical and mental), he would relate that a knife fell from the sky and nearly severed his toe, or some other exaggerated claim.  The truth was he had just knocked my spatula from its makeshift perch.  As he emerged from the shower, and every time it has come up since then, he explains it as “Josh tried to kill me.  His knife fell from the ceiling.”  I always have to defend myself against these malicious and embellished accusations as people hearing this always look at me aghast, wondering how I could be capable of such evil.  I blame the Europeans for not having ledges in their showers!

Something else that I have encountered in European hotels is that you have to put your room key in a slot near the door for the electricity to work.  This also worked against Grady in one instance.  While Bob and I were exiting the room and Grady was in the shower, Bob removed his key from the electricity slot (my term, not the official one).  The lights in the room, including those in the bathroom where Grady was currently showering, went off.  This was immediately followed by more screams from within the bathroom.  Apologies were made and light was restored.  (At this point I would understand if Grady concluded that showering in other continents was not for him).

Another trip to Europe provided yet another shower mishap.  Typically, the shower area is barricaded in some way from the rest of the bathroom, by glass, curtain or some other means, in order to keep water from reaching other areas and landing on the floor.  In one hotel in Tours, France, there was only half of a barricade conveniently accompanied by a removable showerhead.  By half a barricade I mean that the partition dividing the shower area from the non-shower area does not extend the full length of the tub.  In short, it is very easy for water to go places it should not.  Let me also add that the removable shower head rests in a position not conducive to a productive shower session.  Typically, some adjustment was necessary once the shower started.  What does this all mean?  It means that using the shower in Tours comes with risks.

The risks would turn to outright mayhem on the Friday night of my stay.  In the evening I was going to wear a dress shirt that had become wrinkled during travel.  For some reason, I am still not sure why, I declined to ask the front desk for an iron and decided to return to simpler times, before electricity apparently, to just leaving the shirt hanging in the bathroom with a hot shower running.  The steam would, in theory, remove the wrinkles so that I could leave the hotel room and not look like a complete vagrant.

My co-worker and I arrived at the hotel and decided that we would drop our stuff and meet back downstairs in a few minutes to go to dinner.  During these few minutes I would give my shirt the steam bath it needed.  It started well; the shirt was getting its steam and I had visions of walking the streets looking like a respectable citizen should.  But at some point things went a bit awry.  Some water was getting past the semi-partition, so I tried to adjust the movable showerhead so that spraying water would stay in the tub.  Big mistake!

As I attempted to adjust the showerhead, I lost control of it for a second and it fell into a position pointed directly at me and I was blasted with near scalding-hot water.  Thankfully there is no footage of the look on my face as I was being incinerated by French shower water, nor audio of the unintelligible, ululations that no doubt accompanied said look.  My first reaction to get out of the way led to water now being sprayed all over the bathroom.  I bravely (yes, that’s right) went back to get control of the showerhead, fought with it while still being burned, and eventually got the liquid inferno under control.  Needless to say, once some order had been restored in the bathroom it was a complete mess.  I took inventory and started to concoct the explanation I would present to the authorities (perhaps flooding a hotel room is a serious offense in Tours).  I did my best to clean up and fled the scene of the crime to meet my coworker.  When I got downstairs I apologized for my tardiness and he asked, “Everything alright?”  In a cinematic moment, I replayed the chaos that had just taken place upstairs, water flying, my pitiful yelps and gymnastics while trying to get out of the way of the water and the final scene that resembled a room where children with large amounts of water had been left unattended.  I then answered, “yea, everything’s good” and we continued on to dinner.  I would divulge some of the chaos a little later on, but did not give a full recap of the mayhem the European showers had once again caused.

Europe is a wonderful place to visit, but please be advised to shower with caution.