Alex Lella's Blog

Showers or Baths?

Well, it's been a while, but today's prompt is actually something that I always wanted to write about, but I never did because I was afraid that readers would not be interested. Oh well. I guess that's one of the reason God invented blogs.

Anyway, when I was a real little boy, I was flat out scared to take showers. I think I've written about my fear of swimming earlier in this blog, well when I was younger, the idea of water on my head was enough to scare me. Since I liked baths, and I would tolerate shampoos-- if a towel was placed over my eyes, my parents decided not to worry about it. Although, I do remember my grandma warning me that when I was in High School, I would have to take a shower after gym class. This scared me and for a while, I worried about it.

On another note, I remember once someone gave my mother a bottle of bubble bath for a gift. It was a bad gift choice for her because as far as I could remember she always took showers. The bottle gathered dust on a shelf in our bathroom until one day, my mother said that I could have some in my bath if I wanted it. I loved it, but I think my mother was a little displeased for some reason. It made a mess or something, but I digress.

Eventually, I started seeing showers as less scary and more exciting, but I wasn't sure how to express this to my parents. One night, my mother told me that I needed a bath. I said in my silly little boy voice. "Okay turn on the shower."

She smiled like she wasn't sure if I was fooling. "Do you want to take a shower?"

For a minute, I wanted to pretend that I was fooling, but I nodded and said, "Yes."

"Fine," said my mother.

She insisted on peeking through the shower curtain, but whether out of concern or delight, I don't know. Also, she eventually had to tell me to come out so I wouldn't waste water. I was actually unhappy about that. Still, as she dried me off and helped me into my pajamas, she promised that I could take another shower tomorrow if I was good.

There are a few epilogues to this story. One is that when I got to High School, it turned out that we didn't shower after gym.

Another is that a few years ago, I was staying at a motel by myself and the motel had a bathtub. I had not taken a bath in years, but I thought why not take one since I was there. I filled it with hot water and even added some bubble bath which I had bought someplace. Funny thing was, I didn't like it at all.

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