The other day one of my neighbors was telling me how much his gas bill has gone down since he went off to college earlier this fall. He told me his son consistently took 45 minute showers every day. You can certainly tell he is an only child.
That got me thinking about what it was like growing up and taking a shower in a house two parents, six children and two elderly great-grandparents with only one shower/bathtub. We had a second bathroom down in the basement and eventually when I was an early teen my father built a shower in the basement but taking a 45 minute shower was impossible or any shower of any length of time.
When my father built that shower in the basement I stopped using the upstairs bathroom. It had been getting harder and harder to get time in the bathroom with three sisters. By that time too our great-grandparents had moved into a nursing home and passed away shortly after but I had learned to take quick showers.
I also took my showers at night before going to bed so I didn't have to compete for much time in the bathroom each morning before going to school. I learned to take five minute showers and to this day I still only spend about that much time in the shower.
Taking a shower with limited fresh water on a Navy ship also taught me the value of a quick shower. I wrote about Navy showers earlier this year. My showers today are always short and I do them the same way I did fifty years ago in the Navy. In and out very quickly but thoroughly. I get cleaned.
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