The 100% Shower

I notice something as I'm getting older.

A shower is no longer just a shower.

Showers now have levels.

There are varying degrees of showering.

Allow me to explain:

I now find that I no longer have the luxury of taking a "quick" shower.

I mean, I can--I can take a quick shower, but it all depends on what I'm going to do that day.

Am I just going to go to work and come home?

Okay, quick shower.

Am I going to do anything even mildly strenuous?  Am I going to be going to a formal function of any time?  During any point in my day, is there a chance I'm going to be feeling nervous or upset about anything?

In that case, I need a full shower.

I need a 100% shower.

A 100% shower is one of those "I'm in here for the haul" showers.  The "stick it out until the water runs dry Boyz-II-Men shout-out" showers.  The "conserve water be damned I'm old and dirty" showers.

I remember being a little kid, and being clean--all the time.

Yes, little kids get dirty, but little kids, in general, inherently seem to be--clean.

So it only makes sense that for a long time, a mild shower could do more than fully clean a person, it could leave them sparkling.

Then--maybe somewhere around the teenage years--that no longer applies.

Suddenly, you really have to try in the shower.

You have to scrub.  You have to scour.  You have to treat your body like the bathroom floor of a fast food restaurant.

Because if you don't, and your day is anything but a smooth glide across a frozen lake, you're in for it.

It's like one of those tests where you start at 100 and go down based on how many wrong answers you get.  You start out okay, but depending on how many hits you take throughout the day, you can fail miserably and it'll feel all the more awful because you had an A+!  What happened?

You got old.  That's what happened.

Suddenly I smell like my Dad in the morning.  I feel like my Dad.  I look like my Dad on the worst day of my Dad's life.

My hair looks intensely bad.  Like, it looks like during the night, elves came out from under my bed and pulled at all ends of my hair until I looked like a Phyllis Diller impersonator.

And all that can cure me is a 100% shower.

Anything less a full-on sandblast of hot, steaming water mixed with enough soap to cover a small Prius will not get me through a hectic day.

I don't necessarily miss the short showers, because I like the soothing feeling of a long, hot shower.

But I hate that I need those long showers now.  I hate that they're not just something to do to make myself feel better.

I hate that something that was once a pleasure is now a necessity.

Is that getting old?

Is that one statement the embodiment of getting old?

You know what?

It just might be.