3/14/2009

The Hokey Pokey Shower

If you have kept up with my travels in the past, you know what I REALLY dislike cold showers. I still would not say that I LIKE cold showers, but I would like to retract any complaint I’ve ever made about taking cold showers. You see they don’t have hot water heaters here; they use these little demonically possessed things called “widow makers”…yea that’s right I said WIDOW MAKER…hmmm definitely sounds like something you want to use on a daily basis huh?? Well, I had a widow maker in Costa Rica, and it was old, and worked 80% of the time, but it was just fine. I now have a much newer, nicer one, but there’s one major problem. Widow makers function with water pressure. It’s a device that looks like a large shower head, and when the water runs through it, it heats the water. I learned in Costa Rica that there’s an art to getting the perfect temperature of water. There has to be enough water running through to turn the widow maker on, but then once you get up and running you turn the water pressure down, the more water running through it the colder the water is. So you get it just the right temperature and you pray no one flushes the toilet within a one mile radius, because if so, you’re back to square one. Well, back to my problem. For some reason, I have very low water pressure here. The water that comes out of the tap is pretty stinking cold, definitely nothing you want hitting your warm body at 6:00 in the morning, so I do want to say, I’m GRATEFUL for my little widow maker. But due to the LACK of water pressure, there is one level of hotness in my shower, and it is SCALDING!!! I’m telling you imagine putting water on to boil and just before it reaches the point where you see little bubbles forming; dump it over your head…yea, not happy. So I realized this morning as I was trying to rinse the conditioner out of my hair while trying to avoid blisters forming on my back, that the writer of “The Hokey Pokey” must have had a shower like mine. Seriously I feel like I have to do a dance. Stick your head in, stick your head out, stick your head in and you shake it all about, you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around…that’s what it’s all about. Occasionally once in a blue moon, I’ll have enough water pressure, that the water will be at a temp where I can stand under it for longer than about 3 seconds, and for that I’m grateful. I think I have decided I’d rather scalding hot than freezing cold. I just miss the days when there was a happy medium.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Put your head in, put your head out, put your head in and shake it all about! Super description!! I took many a cold shower in Panama and found it a very refreshing reprieve from the heat - for about two seconds! :) I feel for you!!

Billy and Laurie said...

I LOVE your post about the shower!!! Similar issues here... we DO have a hot water heater, but it is gas (propane) and it also works on water pressure. You have to have enough pressure for it to access the gas and come on. So after about a month of having a "live in plumber", we now have enough pressure to run it constantemente - Hallelujah! Now the trick is the gas... if the propane tank is totally full, the water gets sort of lukewarm-ish. As the gas tank gets lower and lower, the water temp gets hotter and hotter. My favorites days are when the tank is about to run out - then the water is SUPER hot and perfect for a long soak in the tub with a book. Oh the joys of living in another country... Love you, Rhonda!!!