Bath whiz

When I was about two years old my mother snapped a photo of me in the bathtub making goo-goo faces at a rubber ducky and wearing a plastic bucket as a hat. I say this A) because I wanted to write the creepiest opening sentence ever, and B) because that may have been the last time I was ever happy to be taking a bath.

Kudos to you if you can do the whole bath thing. I can’t.

The reasons for this have changed over the years. Back then it was an irrational and childish fear of sewer monsters coming up out of the drain and nibbling on my toes like little flesh-colored Skittles. These kinds of ideas just sort of pop into your head at that age; one minute you’re happily pruning in a sea of bubbles with your toy boats and submarines, the next you’re clinging to the side of the porcelain tub with the “Jaws” theme running through your head. If the murderous clown from “It” had oozed through the spigot and taken a chomp off my thigh, I would have found this completely logical. That happens when you’re two.

Grow up a smidge and you start to find adult rationalizations for these vague fears. Sewer monsters are no longer a concern, but they don’t need to be. They’ve been supplanted by a fear of nature’s Tinkerbells, the ubiquitous microbe. Anxiety over microbes in a bath is nearly as asinine as getting the Boogie Monster jitters, because microbes are all around, on and inside of us all all times. They coat our stomach linings to aid in digestion, they loiter in our eyebrows, and don’t even get me started on the colon, a microbe metropolis with its own economy and highway system. (All signs point to one exit. Zing!)

Microbes don’t stand much of a chance in a hot bath, especially if you’re like me and prefer scalding water temperatures that in time could dissolve the metal tumblers in a combination lock. Yet the fear persists. Spend any amount of time in a bath and you can see the water turn the dirty eggshell color of an old refrigerator. This is filth that had previously been muckled onto your body, which means sitting in a pool of uncirculated water is the equivalent of soaking in a bacterial frappe. The temperature may rob the bacteria of most of their their bite, but surely a few hearty survivors remain, doing microscopic backstrokes in the oily dirt-and-sweat cocktail sluicing around your wrinkled bum.

In other words, baths are gross. I base this on exactly zero scientific evidence, but hey, that’s what makes it a phobia. I’d just rather not take my chances.

Showers, though -- showers are divine.

No pools of stagnating water. No dirt particles floating around your puckered belly button. Just a high-pressure jet of steamy goodness blasting you about the face and chest, banishing all filth into a steadily emptying drain -- and drowning any sewer monsters in the process. If there were more time in the day I’d happily loiter in the shower for a solid hour, emerging only when my skin turned the color of boiled lobster.

Water pressure is paramount. It can make or break a shower. Too little pressure makes the whole endeavor feel weak and ineffectual; it’s like standing under a dripping tree branch after a spring rain, vaguely pleasant but ultimately unsatisfying. Too much pressure, on the other hand, is practically impossible, unless you’ve got the kind of shower head used to clean circus elephants. You know the force of the stream is perfect when it’s just shy of physically removing your head from your body.

Solid shower pressure can have an impact on whether your hair looks normal or like a limp cluster of spaghetti noodles. This is no longer a concern of mine, of course, since I made the decision a long time ago to shave my head bald, thereby ridding myself of the hassle of a thinning hairline; better to look like someone’s big toe than a meerkat with radiation poisoning. But I remember when hair was a daily consideration. In order to attain the fluff necessary to cover my scalp, I needed good shampoo and solid jet of water, something with enough physical force to shock my fickle follicles into obedience. Otherwise it drooped lamely on my scalp and looked sad in some way, like someone had just delivered some terrible news. “Sorry, Jeff’s hair, but you’ve got six months left to live.” That wouldn’t have been far from the truth.

Transitioning from baths to showers made me feel weirdly grown-up. There are clearer rites of passage, like my first shave, or my first make-out session under the bleachers during a high school football game. Still, there’s something to be said about abandoning the bubbles and Aquaman action figures in favor of a good standing wash. I’d slide open the opaque shower door and step out into a room choked with steam and feel about 10 years older, ready for all the trials of adulthood. Wrapping myself in a towel at the age of 9, I was ready to do a round of taxes and haggle with a mechanic about the price of auto parts. Nevermind the fact that I still sounded like Mickey Mouse taking huffs off a helium tank.

Baths are supposed to be sensual experiences at this stage of life, with scented candles peppering the room and Barry White’s creamy nougat voice rumbling from some faraway stereo. Maybe there’s nail polish involved, if you’re so inclined. I just can’t get over that icky feeling, a sense that something isn’t as it should be.

I could always force myself to take my first bath in years in order to confront my fear, but something tells me I’d snap, and the first person to find me would behold a gibbering ninny, slinging nonsense while wearing a plastic bucket as a hat.