March 25, 2004
Dear Pat,
In the nine years DC and I have lived in our house, we have never taken a shower.
Neither of the bathrooms has a shower, so we have had to develop a new appreciation for the slow pleasures of bathing in the absence of the quick and cheap thrills of showering. We miss showers.
It is said having a child changes your life forever. Having construction done on your house might, too.
The crew installing a shower and a new bathtub that makes bubbles in our upstairs bathroom moved in more than a week ago and immediately exiled our old bathtub to the driveway, removed the bathroom sink and ripped up the wood floor to begin the re-plumbing. The bathroom looks like it exploded.
We weren't ready for their arrival. But DC's philosophy is that when the contractor you want is ready to go, you go.
We had less than 24 hours to move everything out of the bathroom. We now have towels in our bedroom, medicines and cosmetics in a spare bedroom and sundries in the third bedroom.
We didn't know how these additions to the bathroom were going to fit in. Plan A was to butt the bathtub and shower against each other along the east wall. That didn't work. Neither did Plan B to move the toilet near the door.
DC's parents came by to survey our plight. So did mine. They made helpful suggestions that led to Plan C and Plan D.
If Mark, our contractor, is becoming frustrated with us, he doesn't let on. After we threw out Plan G, he assured, "It's always like this."
I wonder. At one time we wanted him to find a way to run a line from the bathroom to the basement just so we could put the toilet exactly where we want it.
The toilet spoils all the plans. It doesn't really fit anywhere. DC doesn't want it near a window or near a door for reasons of propriety. An outhouse may be the only answer.
This week's major accomplishment was ordering the bathtub and faucets. Unfortunately, some of the most important parts won't arrive until the end of April.
Fortunately, we actually do have a shower if you want to count the insert that sits beneath the stairway to the basement. It's dark back there and cobwebbed, a remnant of the house's 90-year past during which, we suspect, college students at one time roamed the basement.
To reach the shower, we had to blaze a trail through a subterranean wilderness of bicycles and old golf bags and boxes with mysterious contents. Arriving, we discovered the shower floor resembled the black lagoon, and water dribbled out like the shower you make with a hose and bucket when you go camping.
DC is being optimistic. If there's ever a terrorist attack and we have to live in the basement, she says, we're ready.
Now we're getting lots of showers.
Today we found out that our old-fashioned fuse box is inadequate to supply power to the bubble-making bathtub. We need a new breaker box. The line that brings electricity into the house will have to be brought up to code. It will have to be buried. We are about to dig a 100-foot hole running from Lorimier Street to the new breaker box.
We just wanted to take a shower.
Love, Sam
Sam Blackwell is the managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.
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