Things That Sound Good in Theory

This weekend we had the rare opportunity to have a guest over for dinner at our house. On a normal night, my family’s dinner conversation generally centers around the following phrases:

Don’t play with your food.

Chew with your mouth closed!

Sit your butt IN your chair.

Eat over your plate!

Oh my God. Are you done yet? Good. Just go wash your hands and get ready for bed.

A seventh person at the table therefore is always a happy departure from the norm.

When the kids had all been sent off to bed and settled in, my friend and I finally got to have some appropriate and very inappropriate adult conversation.

“Do you know what’s always such a romantic idea at the time but almost always turns out badly?” she asked.

I was stumped.

“No…what could that be?”

“Taking a shower with another person,” she replied, sipping her coffee.

“Oh Father, YES!” I agreed emphatically. “That’s never a good time.”

Now, I’m not saying that I have or have not shared a shower with another person, but I can confess to having an inkling as to how the whole event might unfold.

M.O.M Squad – I present to you: A Soapy Shower Snafu.

It was a warm spring night and the moon was full and pale yellow. The house was silent except for the sounds of creaking floor boards and a snoring dog slumbering at the foot of Mitchell and Michelle’s bed. (Obviously these are fictional characters. Surely you cannot expect me to betray their personas by giving details of two people you might be more familiar with…say a woman with FOUR kids?)

Michelle was restless and couldn’t sleep.

“What’s the matter, honey,” murmured Mitchell. “Something on your mind?”

“It’s just so warm tonight, and I can’t get comfortable,” she moped. “I think I should take a cool shower, maybe that would help.”

Mitchell was immediately excited about the idea.

“Why don’t I join you?”

  Michelle giggled and said why not. There were so many steamy love scenes in movies that featured couples showering together seductively. The event almost always ended with the two curled up together in crisp white sheets, stroking each other lovingly. Perhaps she and Mitchell could recreate that magic? It was worth a try. They had never showered together before, not once in the course of their 5 year marriage.

Michelle ran the shower water and stepped in. Mitchell got in behind her and yelped.

“It’s too hot!”

“Oh…sorry. I can add some cold water to it.”

She turned the knob of the hot water ever so slightly. She did not like lukewarm showers. She only felt clean when the water was scalding hot. When Mitchell complained that it was still not cool enough, worrying that his “balls would boil in the heat”, she finally found a temperature that would suit them both. By this time, the endeavor had pushed her beneath the stream of water several times, and her hair was soaking wet. It clung to her cheeks and blinded her every time she turned around. There was barely enough room to wipe her face.

“Move back,” she ordered Mitchell. “You’re taking up all the room in the shower!”

“No I’m not sweetie. I’m nearly pushed up against the wall.”

It was true. Their house, like many others that were constructed in the early 80s, had a tub that was one and a half times smaller than the ones pitted in homes of the new millennia. Neither one of them had noticed this before, seeing as they had always showered separately, but their combined girth seemed to constitute more than the confines of the porcelain tub could handle.  As they struggled to get their footing in the watery arena, Mitchell thought it would be a good idea to introduce soap. Perhaps the fragrance of the bubbles would calm them both.

Still blinded by the force of the water in her face (as she was by now standing directly underneath the shower head), Michelle was unaware that Mitchell had poured liquid soap into a wash cloth and was preparing to wash her back. The soapy sensation felt good.

“Mmmm,” she moaned. “That feels nice.”

Suddenly she froze.

“Wait…which wash cloth are you using?”

“The white one with the rose petals on it.”

“Ewww!” she screeched. “Get it off of me!”

Mitchell was alarmed.

“Wait…what? What’s wrong, hun?”

“That’s my butt rag.”

“Your butt rag?”

“Yes! The rag I use to wash inside my butt. I don’t use it for anything else. I also have a face rag. The lime green one.”

Mitchell grimaced. He surmised that it would be unwise to inform his wife that not only did he not have separate wash cloths for different jobs, but that he had also used HER lime green rag to wash between his legs on hot sweaty days. After 5 years of marriage he had never known his wife had different cloths for different jobs. Then again, he had never showered with her either.

Mitchell was still bone dry in the shower, and wanted to switch places.

“Come stand over here,” he said sweetly. “Would you mind washing me?”

“Where’s your wash cloth?” asked Michelle.

“Oh. Uh…I think I would like it better if you just lathered me up with soap. I like the way your hands feel when they’re roaming.”

Michelle smiled in the darkness. Her husband was so sweet. She picked up a bar of his favorite soap from the caddy and began to rub him with it. She reached up to wash his shoulders and dropped the soap. It hit the bottom of the tub with a thud.

“What was that?” Mitchell asked, turning around.

“Baby, don’t move. I just dropped the…”

Too late.

Mitchell’s right foot was on top of the burnt orange bar and he slipped in the wet darkness. His body hit the bottom of the tub with a crash.

“Oh God!” Michelle cried. “Mitchell! Mitchell!”

Mitchell’s world went blank after that. His only memory was that of drowning in a torrent of scummy water and rain.

When Mitchell awoke the next morning, his mother was sitting in the arm chair next to him.

“Ma? What are you doing here?”

She smiled and rubbed his cheek, just as she had done when he was a child.

“Michelle called me in a panic around midnight last night. She needed my help to pull you into the bed. She said you had an accident last night.”

Mitchell blushed.

“So you know that we were…and you saw my…Oh Ma.”

“Oh please,” she snorted. “There’s nothing that you have that I haven’t seen dozens of times before.”

She got up to leave.

“Now that you’re better, I’ll leave you to your wife. She cried herself to sleep last night in the guest room.”

“Thanks Ma.”

“Good bye son.”

Mitchell stared at the ceiling, feeling ridiculous. All that effort for nothing. If all his wife needed was a good cry to go to sleep, he’d just tell her that her face cloth also doubled as his nut rag. Few other things would make a woman more upset than that.

 

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MOM Squad: What other things sound really good in theory? I can think of only a few more – Water guns at weddings come to mind. What are YOUR thoughts? Can’t wait to hear…