Once a year, usually always on Valentines Day, I decide to take a bath.
It always seems like the world’s greatest idea. I go out and buy bubble bath, I pick out a really good book I can’t wait to read. I lay out the biggest, fluffiest towels that I can find, and set the CD player up in a place I will be able to hear it from the bathroom. I get excited about it all day, imagining the amazing relaxing time I will have in my warm, bubbly bath.
Then the time comes, usually around 8pm that night, because 8pm seems like the best time to take baths, I start to prepare. I fill the tub with hot water, add the bubbles, turn on some music that will make me feel better about being single and taking a bubble bath ALONE on Valentines Night, something like Alanis Morissette or Insane Clown Posse, nice and relaxing. I slop on a face mask making me vaguely resemble Princess Fiona from Shrek... you know, AFTER she decides it’s worth being ugly for love.
Then the time comes to get in! I’m so excited, I cannot wait to start relaxing. My bath looks so appealing, the mirrors in the bathroom are already steaming up because of how hot the water is. I get in. Kind of. It’s not actually that simple, because I always run baths so hot that it takes me awhile to slowly ease myself in, and all the while I'm making noises similar to what I assume a woman giving birth makes. First getting my feet used to the temperature, then my calves, then my butt, then my stomach, finally I lay down and emerge the rest of my body, close my eyes, and begin to praise myself for thinking of such a great way to spend my night.
After a minute or two of lying there with my eyes closed I start to get bored. Luckily I prepared for this, that’s why I picked out the book. Unfortunately I always realise way too late that I shouldn't have gotten my hands wet, and I have always left the towels too far away for me to reach from my sitting position inside the tub, so I end up laying there with my hands sticking out of the water until they drip dry, feeling really stupid and being thankful that there is nobody around to see it. Finally my hands dry, I crack open my book, and start to read.
Between pages I think about how I should really make baths a weekly thing, perhaps Sunday nights will become my bath nights, I’ll start a collection of excellent smelling bath products and decadent accessories such as bath pillows and eye masks. It’s the best idea I’ve ever had so far in my life.
Then a big green glob falls into the bath, splashing sudsy water into my eyes and onto my page, and I realise I am melting. The steam is causing my face mask to sweat off instead of drying into a hard concrete like substance I would usually need a hammer and chisel to get off. Suddenly I realise how hot it is and instead of feeling cleaner, I feel sweaty. I am actually SWEATING underwater, and it’s gross. Then I start to think about how I am bathing in my own sweat, and by now all the dirt that was on my body is in the water, swirling around me, and I’m feeling hot and sweaty and unclean.
This is the point where I reach out with my foot and try to lower the temperature by turning on the cold tap with my toes, when my skin comes into contact with the metal of the faucet which is still approximately 15 thousand degrees from previously having boiling hot water pouring out of it. If anyone happened to be listening on the other side of the door they might think they have accidentally walked into Ozzy Osbourne’s house, on a night when he’s having a domestic with Sharron.
So I let the cold water pour out for awhile, but then it gets too cold, so I run the hot some more, then the cold, then the hot, and eventually the tub it threatening to overflow onto the bathroom floor, so I fish around with my feet and pull out the plug to empty some water out, but as anyone who has ever had a bath knows, while it’s easy to remove a plug with your feet, it’s almost impossible to put it back in the same way, and anyone who knows me will know that I am WAY too lazy to sit up and put it back in with my hands. So I just lay there staring at the ceiling in despair as the water disappears down the plughole, making a noise similar to what I imagine Satan would probably sound like if he stubbed his toe... or burned his leg on a super hot faucet.
I actually honestly believe the sound of the bath draining is the worst noise in the world. Worse than babies crying on a plane, nails on a chalkboard or Alanis Morissette singing.
Finally I just give up, I get out looking pinkish and pruney like a chicken before it’s been roasted. I get dressed into my pajamas, brush my hair and teeth, and crawl into bed, feeling a bit of an anti-climax, vowing to never waste my time with a bath again (at least until next year when I have forgotten about this whole ordeal) but consoling myself with the fact that at least I found a way to pass the time on the worst night of all nights.
Then I look at the clock and realise it’s only 8:30PM.
And that’s why I only bath once a year.
