Revenge Against the Restrooms

Confession: I hate unfamiliar showers.
Maybe you've had this happen to you. (Or maybe this doesn't happen to anyone besides me. Maybe I'm just particularly, repeatedly, awkwardly unlucky). You're visiting somewhere (relative, friend, vacation hotel, wherever), and you're all set to take a shower. After you get in the shower, you realize too late that OH MY GOSH THE WATER IS FREEZING COLD AND I DON'T KNOW WHICH DIRECTION TO TURN THE KNOBS AND TO EVEN TRY I'D HAVE TO STAND RIGHT UNDER THE WORST OF THIS SPRAY OF FREEZING WATER AND I'M GOING TO DIE IN HERE AREN'T I?

(My mind thinks in caps lock when it's cold. Also, my mind usually concludes that I'm about to die when it's cold.)

Perhaps my hatred of unfamiliar showers is why I end up taking so many pictures of quirky unfamiliar bathrooms -- it's like making fun of the bathroom itself is my revenge against all the freezing showers that have wronged me. Whatever the reason may be, I sure have a lot of random restroom photos.

1. Ghana, Africa. 
Male urinal. Female urinal. Either way you go, it's really just a funky sandbox behind that wall.

2. A hotel in Washington, DC.  The picture doesn't do justice to the sheer magnitude of this vessel sink. It was more like a mini-tub, just in case you still wanted to swim some laps or bathe a giant Irish Wolfhound while the regular-sized tub was being cleaned.



3. Xetzaltenango, Guatemala. The in-line-water-heater showerhead that threatens electric death every time you contemplate washing your hair.

4. Chicago, IL.  It's a little-known fact that all the priceless artwork from the French master, Claude Monet, are kept in a summer season bathroom along the Chicago River Walk. That's why they need the added security precaution of the chain and padlock.

 

5. Ethiopia, Africa. The toilet in my hotel room wouldn't refill itself after a flush. At first, I'd refill the tank cup by cup from the bathroom sink, then I realized there was a handy tank-refilling spray nozzle right next to the toilet. When I mentioned my method to another person on the trip, they told me that the spray nozzle is actually a portable bidet, for cleaning one's bum. Super awkward.

 6. Somewhere in Oklahoma, OK.  A public service reminder that this hotel would like you to please shower inside the shower. Thank you for your cooperation.

7.  Chicago, IL.  This has to be the most diplomatic, polite, socially correct description I've ever seen of anything in my entire life.

 

 

There be pirates

Have you ever been to one of those murder mystery dinners?

This weekend found me in Rochester, MN, eating a Castaway Island Cheese Ball at such a dinner. My character was Quintus Swelter, the "sinister and vain" cook on the pirate ship Scurvy Knave. My role in the game was to insult the other ship's cook, make the cabin boy's life miserable, and poison people willy-nilly as the urge struck.

Dave's character was Salamanca, the easily-amused valet of a wealthy Spanish don. I believe Dave's role in the game was to make people wonder whether he shaves his chest or not.

As a bonus, I ran back into a really cool girl I knew back in medical school. (Sarah, in the middle of the group here.) She was playing Saucy Nancy, Captain of the pirate ship Fury. Her apparent assignment in the game was to say "Yarrrrgh" a lot, try to lure the crew away from the other ship, and to make faces in pictures that would make people wonder if she'd had a brainstem stroke.

The only trouble with spending an evening in a house full of people pretending to be someone they're not is that at the end of the night you feel like you know everyone but actually don't know them at all. It's a strange feeling.