How I learnt to survive the wilderness

I know you won’t believe me but this story is one hundred percent true.

It all started with a showerhead.

And I should point out that by wilderness I don’t actually mean, there was anything wild there; except of course the showerhead.

When we moved into our new estate, close to twelve years ago [now I feel old], we had a central heating system. This meant all the showers in the house used one heater and yes, that’s right they all worked.

As time moved and my dad decided he was becoming modern, he took the heating system down [not literally though, it’s still there and I occasionally press it just to see if I can] and installed one of those instant showers into the guest room. It was so exciting [my sister says that strange things excite me, which would explain why I was the only one expecting a birthday cake at the time] and it was also very frustrating as we all had to share just one bathroom.

At first Bob-I’ve decided that’s the showerhead’s name- was super cool. All you had to do was press a button and the water became hot.

In case you’re wondering, why Bob, it’s because I named almost all my first toys and other riff raff Bob when I got them, I’ve just gotten used to it.

I guess though that over time, Bob, felt he wasn’t being appreciated very much.

Nobody, in this case my family really explained to me what was happening until I experienced it firsthand. I had skipped down the stairs and was ready to take another nice hot shower [mind you my room has a bathtub but here I am…showering]. I turn on the switch then proceed to the tap.

At a ghastly speed, a spray of water rushed to my face as if I was being hit by a wave in the sea [bam! Wilderness people, WIL-DER-NESS]. I didn’t know what was going on and consequently what to do. In hindsight, I really didn’t need to take a shower then because I was already soaked and so was the floor.

It all advanced in slow motion from then.

I braved up, which meant that I had to stop screaming for my mum and use my sensibility to scream for my father. It didn’t really help that neither one of them was home. It was up to me to save the day from a flooded bathroom. My superhero needs have really been neglected.

I fought hard in pushing the water out of the way even though that really didn’t make sense and wondering where Moses was at the moment. Maybe ringing him up would have helped in the parting the water department.

It took close to three minutes to finally get to the point where I could feel the tap and finally turn it off. I then learnt that I had to open the tap to a certain level so that it didn’t simultaneously burn off the skin of my butt and drown me.

Bob sure didn’t like this because he seemed to have another trick up his sleeve…trick up his pipe? You figure it out.

It is perfectly clear that when you enter the shower, red is for hot and blue is for cold. Kind of like the blood that flows through the arteries and veins, in books that is. Bob was having none of this you can imagine. One minute you’re turning the hot tap on [on?] the next minute, you’re covered in ice cold water.

I cursed, a lot.

That day I had to shower with cold water.

A few hours later, my mother says in a by the way manner that I didn’t have the time to complain about, “by the way, you have to turn the cold tap on because 
Bob has decided he’s not just your average shower.”

And that is how I learnt to survive the wilderness, crazies.

I’ll admit that if you took me to a forest now I’d probably come out of there hating you and looking worse for wear so don’t you dare take me there.

Also, my mum didn’t actually say Bob.