Monday Musings – The Battle of the Bathtub

Bathtub or Hurdle?

Getting into a shower should not be an extreme sport. This activity of daily living should not require an athletic scholarship, nor a spotter for climbing safety. I wanted to take a shower, not compete in a track and field event. Yet, this is the competition I  entered after settling into my hotel room during a recent trip.

Allow me to set the scene for you. It was a four-hour bus ride, then a twenty-minute ferry ride to the exquisite location of my trip. The air was crisp, the leaves on the trees danced in the breeze showing off their red, orange and yellow hues. Our taxi was a carriage pulled by two beautiful horses that looked like Clydesdales.

I snuggled close to the traveler sitting next to me (no, I didn’t know her) to shield my face from the bite of the wind. The carriage ride was a short trot uphill for the fancy horses. The hotel was grand, elegant, my luggage was waiting outside my room when I arrived.

And here we are back to the point of my story. After riding with the wind blowing through my short cropped hair, I was ready for a warm shower. I prepared as one would, turned water knob to medium heat and waited as the warmth filled the bathroom.

I raised my leg to step into the tub, but my knee made contact with the edge of the tub with a thud, “Ooouch.” That was the moment I realized I didn’t lift high enough. I should have thought back to my son’s high school days as a hurdler – up and over. Had I realized the height of the tub was above my knee, I would have done a few stretches.

Where was my personal trainer when I needed her? How was I to know that out of 388 hotel rooms, I would have the ONE that required a hydraulic lift to enter? My athlete prowess allowed me to enter the tub without incident the next three days of my stay.

I took a picture of the bathtub and texted it to my son. He said, “that’s not a bathtub, it’s a baptismal pool.”

A lightbulb lit in my head…yes a pool. Perhaps I was supposed to stand on the edge of the tub and jump in. Afterall, my preparation to shower did feel like an extreme sport. I lost the first battle of the bathtub, but I won the war. I experienced a peaceful shower the remaining days of my hotel stay.

You may not have experienced a bathtub challenge, but what is one challenge you experienced in which you were able to laugh about later?