I like to think of myself a considerate housemate. I have no choice, really. I only know how to make four meals, and I’m a violent, angry cook (I have no idea why, but every time I’m in the kitchen I become a swearing, yelling, object throwing mutant) so I cook appallingly rarely; I have industrial strength domestic blindness – it will never occur to me to vacuum unless my footsteps on the carpet make an actual crunching sound; and I own nothing of consequence – three sets of cutlery, a metric tonne of dvds and a wall clock. So, if I’m to avoid being turned out on my ass, “considerate” is the only avenue left open to me.
And I do it well. I’m a TV remote relinquishing, space giving, tumble-dryer lint filter emptying, technological gadget assisting pleasure to have around.
Sometimes to my own detriment.
Yesterday I went into the bathroom for my regular morning shower (I don’t know why I felt a need to describe my morning shower as ‘regular’ – probably a subconscious message from my sad, single self to any potentials out there that I Am Clean – snap me up, I’m a catch!). It wasn’t until I was already naked and shuffling back and forth under the stream of hot water to ensure both shoulders warmed up at the same time that I realised that the water pressure was dismal. It was like being peed on (er, I imagine – don’t forget, I Am Clean!). This could only mean one thing:
Someone else in the house was also attempting to shower, in a house that may have three bathrooms, but only enough water pressure to power one shower at 85% strength at any given time. My poor housemate Wolverine was, at that very moment, in her ensuite, also getting peed on.
Now, getting in the shower while someone else is showering flies directly in the face of Considerate Housemate behaviour. I had no choice but to cut my shower short until it was safe again.
I turned off the taps, jumped out into the freezing cold bathroom…and stood there. Well, I couldn’t very well use my towel, could I? It would be all used up and wet when it came time to use it legitimately. So I stood there, waiting. Naked. Wet. And freezing.
It was so cold, after a minute or so I decided to crouch on the ground. Curling myself into a ball would help conserve my rapidly dwindling body heat. Then I scuttled over to the bathroom door, so I could hear the sound of water running in Wolverine’s shower, and would know the very second it was safe to get back under the hot water.
I was there for a week and a half.
Well, maybe not quite that long. The handy water conservation egg timer on the shower wall had not run out yet, so it couldn’t have been more than four minutes. But it felt like a week and a half. It appears that time slows down when you’re naked, wet, freezing, and in the foetal position in the bathroom listening for the clunking sound of water pipes.
But the clunking never came. I listened and I listened and I listened. But all I could hear was the steady stream of nearby water that was staving off hypothermia for someone that wasn’t me.
Then I heard Wolverine’s voice – sounding suspiciously dressed and proximate.
“Jasper? Are you driving to work today? I’ll get a lift with you if I can, so I have more time to have a shower later.”
Turns out she wasn’t in the shower, the sound of water running through pipes was something else entirely, and I’d just spent a week and a half four minutes doing my best impression of a wetter, colder, much less threatening recently arrived Terminator for nothing.
Fuck considerate. From now on they’ll get the remote when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.
