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March 10, 2004

Ben gets dabbed, Chris gets deluged

(more pics)

The missus and I went to the christening of Vicky's and Nicky's boy Ben in Liverpool on the weekend. It was lovely to be around a big extended family event. Neither of us have family here in the UK so such occasions are rare enough to be a treat.

For me, the highlight of the trip had to be the shower in the Hollins Hey Hotel though. Not because it was particularly enjoyable - quite the opposite. But it was such a challenge it went beyond being an annoyance to being an experience to marvel at.

To begin with, the shower was one of those handheld thingies in a bathtub with half of a glass shield instead of a shower curtain. A sticker on the side of the glass shield warned not to stand beneath the shower when turning it on. It was therefore a good thing that you could remove the shower sprayer whatsit from the support thingamabob as otherwise there would be no way to turn the shower on without having most of your body directly under the spray.

The sticker warned about water temperature and scalding but the real danger was enormous, fire-hydrant-like water pressure and the fact that this enormous torrent was focused through a rather cheap plastic shower nozzle. In keeping with our modern age, the taps were digital. As far as water pressure went, they had two values: 0 and 1 billion.

Vicki showered first and came back into the room laughing. "Look out for the shower" was all she said.

And so I took it very carefully. I turned each of the taps the smallest increment I could, literally a degree at a time. At first there was nothing, but then, one degree more, and water burst out of them as if I'd removed a little Dutch boy from a dike.

The temperature seemed all right though. So I stepped into the shower, grasped the hand held shower thingmabobinchab (I think I'm just going to call it a "wand" from now on) and clicked the little lever that redirected the waterflow.

The wand immediately flew out of my hand and started writhing around the bottom of the tub and up against the wall. I scrabbled around on all fours trying to trap it and received several nasty blows to the head and other important bits of the body. The whole while the wand blasted water all over the bathroom and myself. In a panic, I hit the lever again and the wand fell dormant to the bottom of the tub.

I now tried putting it in the support whatchacallit. I flicked the lever and the same thing happened. The wand took on a life of its own and had to be subdued by killing its source of evil power.

You may assume that I was irritated and angry at this point but you would be wrong. I was simply amazed and a bit amused. And now it was a challenge. Other people must have mastered this shower and so would I.

I grasped the wand tightly in both hands, then leaned forward and carefully nudged the shower lever with my knee. The wand immediately tried to leap free but I managed to control it. Now that it knew who was the more powerful, more sentient being, the wand was tamer. I was able to direct it with only one hand and soap up my nasty bits with the other.

I continued to soak the rest of the room, however, because the pressure was so great it shot out of the back end of the wand as well as through the nozzle. I tried covering up this back spray with my hand but I almost dropped it again so soon gave up.

A short while later the job was done and I turned off all the taps and switches and spent the next ten minutes drying as much of the room as I could with the towels that we had.

In fairness, I should point out that the rest of our hotel room held no surprises and was, in fact, quite lovely with a big four poster bed and if I'd just taken a bath instead of a shower I would have nothing bad to say about the place.

And the christening was lovely. The Canon from Cantrememberwhere did the service and he was an entertaining old git who sat down at the piano and played an impromptu song partway through the ceremony. Afterwards there was tea and beer and nibbles at one of the grandmothers' house and it was all very pleasant. And I suppose, in a way, my experience in the shower was just God's way of making sure I was properly baptised myself before I went to the ceremony.

Posted by YandaMan at March 10, 2004 8:38 AM
Category: Britain (except for London) , Humour