My size has excluded me from many things in my life: I will
never be a jet pilot; I will never find pants that fit me correctly; I will
never be able to fit comfortably in the back of a compact car. And while I love
being somewhat tall, I do recognize that I could have a much more comfortable
life if I were but a few inches shorter. Every once and again, I get a reminder
that I was made too tall for this world, and most of these times occur while in
the bathroom.
For the past two years, I have lived in apartments with
showerheads that reach barely above my navel.
To combat this, so that I can be clean from the hip up, I have had to
take up limbo as a means to get myself properly clean. So each morning, I get up, hit my head on the
shower frame, turn on the faucet, and then proceed to dip my head down low
enough to get my hair wet. This ritual becomes even more daunting when taking
into account that my family is notorious for waking up with incredibly low
blood pressure. So sometimes when I lean over to shower, I find myself unable
to stand up again, and so I wait, doubled over in my shower, until I can stand
up without fainting.
Today, I got home from the public library and decided, “Today,
I will take a bath!” which is incredibly
weird for me to decide because I have not taken a bath in years and I was raised
to think that baths were unacceptable for any purpose of personal hygiene. But
determined, I grabbed my book, turned on the tap, and started to fill the tub.
Impatient as always, I hopped inside of the tub before the water level had
risen above three inches, but due to the laws of mass, when I sat in the tub,
the water level rose nearly to the lip.
I tried to manage myself into some comfortable position, but
found myself in a predicament in each and every one of them. When I sat with my
legs straight out in front of me, I found my butt being pushed up the slope of
the far end of the tub, making it so that I just hovered above the surface of
the water. I then decided to bend my knees in, but to keep my feet against the
floor meant that my knees nestled themselves into my nostrils. If I put my feet
against the wall, my knees then found themselves in my eye sockets. I slouched
further and further into the tub until my butt hit one wall, my head the other,
and my legs shot directly up into the sky, where I could toe my showerhead like
a lover’s foot. From here I grabbed my book, and tried to fit my elbows to my
side so that I would be able to read. And there, feeling somewhat like a
Jack-in-the-box, I read for half an hour, just so that I could accomplish my
earlier goal of taking a bath.
I was never taught much about the Presidents, in school, and
I might be able to only name ten of our country’s former leaders. But as soon
as I started to unwedge myself from the tub, my mind settled upon President William
Howard Taft. I know nothing about what Taft did as a president, nor do I know
anything relevant about his life, but as I sat in my tub, I remembered how Taft
did not fit the tub in the White House and had to have four men squeeze him
from his porcelain shackle. I shuddered at the thought of becoming imprisoned
in my tub, and having to pound on my bathroom wall until my fat and pleasant neighbor,
Vern, realized that I was in trouble and needed assistance. So to make sure
that I would not become stuck in the tub, I lubed up my body with as much soap
as I could muster while the water level lowered.
After lubing up, the issue of getting out of the tub was no
longer an issue, but actually being able to stand up became nearly impossible.
After trying to stand a few times and then slipping, crashing my butt onto the
floor of my tub repeatedly, I then realized what I a commotion my downstairs
neighbors must be hearing. Of course, my concern lasted for only a second
because my downstairs neighbors don’t speak English, and therefore, could never
be able to complain to me in a manner that I would understand. I managed to get
myself up, showered off, and then I realized something. When I am able to own a
bath that fits me, and I can read in it to my hearts delight, then I will know
I have been a success. And I can die happy.
