Artie Johann illustration by Gregor Louden
I’m here today to talk to you about a new lifestyle that I discovered last week while I was stealing bike pedals at the gym. It’s called showering.
You might be asking yourself “If you’ve never heard of showering, how do you clean yourself?” Good question, simple answer: tongue baths. My motto has always been, “If it’s good enough for a cat, it’s good enough for me.” So, if cats can bathe themselves, why can’t I? I’ve got less hair and a bigger tongue, so it seemed natural. And it’s worked out great for the most part. The only time it became a problem was when I was around people, or at work, or not around people, or not at work.
The thing is, I’ve always known what a shower was, I just didn’t think people used them for anything. I thought they were purely decorative. You know, like the fruit they put in living room displays at IKEA. That fruit is not real, by the way. But that doesn’t mean you can’t eat it. Just because something isn’t food, doesn’t mean you can’t eat it. Like this one time, I ate my neighbor’s kid’s tire swing. They didn’t even get mad at me. They actually bought me dinner for a week straight, then checked in with me sporadically for the next couple years. They said it was to make sure I wasn’t eating more garbage, but I think it was because they respected what I did to their swing.
Since discovering this showering thing, I decided to do a little research. And I found that there’s a whole culture of it in our country. Apparently, about 98% of our population chooses showering as their primary method of cleaning. And here I am thinking it was only for fancy, ribbon-wearing horses. Sometimes I’m such a dope.
After some more research, I decided to try this thing for myself. Here are three things I noticed since I started:
- That smell is gone. You know that smell that follows you around all day every day since you hit puberty? The one that smells like fleshy onions and dirty hair? Well, it’s gone. Showering must have cleaned out my sinuses or something. So that’s pretty cool.
- The drain is the perfect size for pee. A lot of life is finding places to take a leak. And in the shower is the perfect spot. You can clean yourself and get rid of your waste at the same time. I know what you’re thinking, and no, you can’t poo in it. For some reason babies are allowed to poo while they take a bath, but when adults do it people think you’re being an asshole. Which is okay. Unless they’re like a Duke or something, I don’t care if people think I’m an asshole.
- You can smoke in the shower and there’s never anybody telling you it’s bad. It’s hard nowadays to go places without people criticizing you for smoking. For example, I have these parents who give me a bunch of guff about it. I just tell them that I did it when I was nine years old and I was fine then, so why would it be any different now? Plus, everyone thought it was cool when I was nine. And trends don’t change. Why ruin my rep because my parents “want me around longer”?
Overall, I think showering is a lifestyle that’s here to stay. It’s easy, it’s fast, and there’ll always be enough water. I know this because there are literally millions of faucets. I think that’s the problem in Africa. No faucets. All they need is a good plumber. You know, my uncle’s a plumber, he could probably do it. Actually, probably not. He’s afraid of flying, so I don’t know how he’d get there. I’m sure one of his friends would do it, just as long as it doesn’t get in the way of their bowling league. Plumbers get real serious about bowling. So they can help Africa any day, except Tuesday and Thursday nights.
Overall Rating
Four Out of Five Weird Baby Heads
(Baby heads are weird. They’re bald and lumpy and mostly ugly. But they must be a good thing because people seem to love babies. I don’t get it, but I’ll follow trends off a cliff and babies are hot right now.)
This article was originally published October 2012