All Shower Knobs Should Be the Same
I like to think I have it together. I floss at night, exercise regularly, find joy in my work and friends and family, and otherwise complete all the tasks required to keep myself alive without ever referring to them as “adulting.” But there is one banal recurrence that always momentarily destabilizes me, that causes the veneer of balance to slip away and leaves me questioning everything from the nature of modern plumbing to my own capabilities as a human: encountering a new shower.
Take yourself back to the last time you used a shower you’d never used before. Perhaps, in this visualization, you’re on a weekend trip to a quaint upstate Airbnb. Maybe it’s the morning after you stayed over a date’s apartment for the first time. Maybe you’re visiting your grandma—I don’t know your life. You strip down, anticipating a cleansing and relaxing moment of solitude. Instinctively, you turn the knob the way you think you should—like with your shower at home—and you’re suddenly met with a torrent of freezing water. It takes you another 30 seconds or so to adjust the shower to your desired settings, but in those 30 seconds all your cumulative failures flash before your eyes. You’re incompetent. You’ve accomplished nothing. You’ve never even finished reading the Dr. Bronner's bottle. Also, you’re still cold and nude.
In February, I became acquainted with the extremely stupid hotel shower that pushed me over the edge. It was so unintuitive that, by the end of my stay, I believed it was personally antagonizing me. One side’s settings appeared to be “Doric column” and “messed up toothbrush.” The other side’s were obviously hot and cold, but the handles required the user to remember to turn them the opposite way of what made any reasonable sense. The worst part was that the design included a large, mirrored slab so that I was forced to look at myself while I struggled with the knobs, incapable of escaping my futile attempts at control. Here, gaze upon the terrible reflective face of my truest enemy:
Search “shower” on Google images and you’ll find millions of results, each a slightly different permutation of what should otherwise be a basic water-dispensing method. (Including this one, an affront to both God and man.) My solution to this glut of choice is a plan that’s approximately number 13,684,790 on the list of current pressing priorities: Make all shower knobs the same.
I don’t know how we’d enact this sweeping national reform, exactly, as shower scientists have proven so far that they can’t be trusted. (My vote is to put the guy with the soothing voice from the Dyson commercials in charge, since he seems to know what he’s doing.) The ideal design is also up for debate—it would just have to be accessible to everyone—but could potentially be crowdsourced. Or maybe give someone a MacArthur genius grant to figure it out. I imagine Big Shower will do everything in its power to stop this, but I have hope. Until then, stay strong and don’t forget to wash your legs.
The scientific investigation you know you've been waiting for.
Plus: sneakers are the new handbags, and New York Fashion Week gets shorter.
Originally Appeared on GQ
