My roommate and I have been battling our shower curtain since, well pretty much since we moved into our apartment two years ago. To be fair, it’s not the shower curtain, it’s the rod. It would constantly slip and then eventually the whole thing would come crashing down. Sometimes it took absolutely no provocation, we’d be sitting in the living room enjoying our morning coffee and a loud crash would echo out from the bathroom. Other times you’d be in the shower and tug on the curtain a bit and down it would come. It was good times. Eventually, I went out and bought a shiny new shower curtain rod so that these issues would be a thing of the past . . . exact same problems as before. Either our bathtub is just the tiniest bit longer than a standard shower curtain rod, or we have a ghost that has a serious grudge against shower curtains staying up.

So, to solve this problem I just started resting each end of the rod on top of tile wall that surrounds the bathtub. Problem solved! New problem: now the shower curtain only hangs down into the tub about two inches, which means when the slightest nudge or spray of water hits it, the bottom of the curtain flies out and water gets all over the bathroom. Ugh! Needless to say, my roommate and I have become very careful shower-ers. Until this weekend, when I had a brilliant idea! Emily was at Target so I asked her to pick up the cheapest shower curtain hooks they had. I added the second set of hooks onto the original set and voila, for $1.50, our shower curtain is now long enough that our troubles are over! To double check my work, I stepped into the bathtub and closed the curtain. Emily was holding off taking a shower until I fixed the shower curtain, so I loudly announced that I was finished. She hollered a “Yay!” from her room. That’s when I realized that since she was in her room she had no idea that I was now standing in the bathtub behind the drawn curtain. This is when I had my second brilliant idea of the weekend – I was going to stay in the bathtub and scare the crap out of Emily! The following is my inner monologue.

Okay, she’s still in her room packing to go to her parents’ house, perfect. I’ll stand in the middle of the tub and when she pulls back the curtain I’ll say “Boo!” It’ll be great! Oh, wait a minute. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her scared before. I wonder if she’s more of a fight or a flight person? If she’s a fight person and I’m standing in the middle of the tub, she’ll be able to punch me right in the face before I even see it coming. Hmmm. I really don’t see her doing that . . . but am I willing to take that risk? Okay, I’ll be in the middle of the tub, but I’ll be up against the back of the wall. That way if she tries to punch me she’ll have to over extend and it won’t hurt as much. Huh? You can’t really stand all the way back, the curve of the tub is too much. Okay, I’ll scoot my feet back as far as they can go and lean against the wall. There, perfect! This is kind of awkward. Who cares! It’ll totally be worth it!

***

Good lord! Is she moving out, how much stuff is she packing? Just come take your shower already!

***

Ooo, she’s coming in the bathroom! Should I do a scary face, or a creepy smile? Smile, definitely creepy smile! Okay, she’s going for the light switch, closing the door, any second now . . . any second now . . . any second . . . oh good grief, what is she doing? Wow, you really can’t see anything through this curtain. I have no idea what she is doing. Which I guess is good, because that means that she has no idea that I’m back here. Awesome! Wait a minute. That also means that on an everyday basis, someone could be hiding behind this curtain and neither of us would have any clue until we pulled it open. *shudder* Note to self – start leaving the shower curtain open, so that serial killers who break in will have to find somewhere else to hide.

Second note to self – stop watching Criminal Minds, it’s warping your brain. Oh! Oh, she’s moving, get ready!

Oh no. No, no, no, stop! Stop, don’t do that! Aw crap, she’s going to the bathroom. Now this is just awkward. Should I say something? No, no that would be worse. Stay the course, she’ll be done in a second and all will go as planned. Unless of course, she has to poop . . . oh god! She has to poop! Nooooooo! I should say something, I should really say something. She doesn’t want me in here listening to her poop, I wouldn’t want somebody to listen to me poop. But she’s already pooping, I would be interrupting her poop. You can’t interrupt a good poop, that’s sacrilegious! Crap, crap crap, this is not how this was supposed to go!

***

I wonder if she’d notice if I opened the window? Kat, no! Of course she would notice. Pull yourself together Michels, you’ve smelled worse. In fact, this doesn’t even hit the top ten worst poops you’ve smelled, you’ll be fine. Stay the course, it’ll be worth it … I hope. Actually at this point I just hope that she doesn’t kill me. She has a good sense of humor, she’ll think this is funny … I hope. *Puggles barking* Oh crap! Shhh! Shhh! Puggles stop it. If you keep barking, she going to wonder why I’m not shushing you. Oh God! What if it’s Earl coming home? No, no it’s not Earl. They’ve stopped barking. Good.

***

Oh good lord, my feet are purple! I’ve been standing so long at this awkward angle that my feet have gone purple! Okay, I can wiggle my toes still, that’s good. I should move my feet, switch positions. No! You can’t do that, this bathtub creaks with any sort of movement. Maybe if I bend my knees a little bit. Stand, bend, stand, bend, get the circulation going. There, that seems to be helping some. Oh, oh, she flushed, okay get ready! No! Don’t get undressed first, just pull back the curtain and then this can all be over! Argh!!!! Crap. Now she’s naked, I’ve heard her poop and she’s pulling back the curtain really slowly. *She sees me, gasps and wraps the curtain around her.*

“Oh God! Were you in there while I pooped?”

“Yep, good poop!” thumbs up. She starts laughing.

“You are ridiculous. How did you breathe?”

“I was gonna open the window, but I thought you’d hear it.” She laughs some more.

“I feel like we’ve bonded.”

“Me too.”

“Can I take my shower now?”

“Yep.”

I step out of the bathtub and return to my now cold coffee in the living room. The shower starts, I get a text message, “Can you tweet about that? I think it deserves a tweet, or a blog post.” Oh, definitely a blog post Em. Most definitely a blog post.