A Shower With My Clothes On

A Shower with My Clothes On


A social norm has been broken. A shower has occurred. Clothes were worn.

The Outfit:
One baggy, gym-reject, Everlast tee-shirt, grey. Chosen for dispensability.
One spaghetti strap tank top, grey. Chosen because I was already wearing it.
One pair of old sweatpants, grey. Chosen because they were on top in my sweatpants draw.
One mismatched pair of fuzzy socks, green and pink. Chosen because I never match my socks…maybe I should’ve made more of an effort for this.
One pair of Converse All-Stars, red with blue shoelaces. Chosen because part of going in with clothes means going all-in. No wussing out with flip-flops.

The scenario: First, I had to warn my roommate. I felt that, somehow, leaving for 10 minutes and showing up again drenched might be somewhat disturbing and cause laughter. Unfortunately, explaining what I was doing did nothing to alleviate this effect. It simply led to laughter earlier than otherwise could have been expected. Dressed in my “I don’t care if I ruin this” outfit, shower caddy and towel in hand, I made my way down the hall to the bathroom. I passed one person, a couple other people had their doors open. I felt suspicious, avoided looking at them. Objectively, I realized this was not any different than I would normally look going to take a shower. I still felt like telling everyone I passed what I was doing and explaining that it was for class- that I wasn’t crazy. Then I felt indignant. I can shower in clothes if I want to. Maybe that’s how I roll. Maybe I should do stuff like this all the time, just to experiment with the gloriousness of life, and a world where I am free to shower in whatever I wish. Then I realized that I was at the bathroom.

I walked over to the shower section of the bathroom nonchalantly, playing it cool. Two of the four showers were empty. Unwritten social protocol dictated that I take the handicapped shower, not directly next to my fellow showerers. I figured this would give me more space anyway. At first, I didn’t get wet. I felt a strange aversion to getting wet. I realized that anyone walking into the shower section would see my converse and sweatpants under the curtain- see them in the stream of water from the shower head. I felt a giggle coming, felt absurd. I squashed the giggle and stepped forward into the water. It was warm and it hit my leg first. It kind of looked like I peed in my pants, so I walked forward more to get my shirt wet too. I did a slow ballerina turn, shoes filling up with water. They squelched satisfyingly when I moved. I felt like laughing again. My pants were getting heavier. In hindsight, comfy sweatpants were a horrible choice. They were loose around my hips and super-absorbent, heavy. They wanted to fall down but stayed up by clinging to me. Everything was clinging to me. It smelled like laundry, and it was hot, humid. I started to feel a little claustrophobic. My body felt weird, my clothes heavy, intrusive. I poured some kiwi lime shampoo into my hand and relaxed myself with the relatively normal action of washing my hair. Washing my body was more of a challenge. My curves felt different under wet clothing, I couldn’t reach my skin the way I normally would and had to dig under wet fabric. It felt like I had a different body. I decided to drip some shampoo onto my shoe. It made a wet “Plop”. I grinned as it turned to suds.

Turning off the water, still in my baggy, drippy clothes, I walk back. There are sweat-preventing holes on the sides of my converse. They gush out water when I step forward. A little gush with every step. Back in my room, peeling off my clothes is creepy. The fabric is warm still, stretchier than normal, clinging to my limbs. I think of snake skins. It’s somewhat repulsive. Now my clothes smell like kiwis. They drip kiwi-juice, Chinese torture-style, onto my dorm room floor. I do not recommend showering with your clothes on.