Sep 21, 2018 3 min read

My friend Gina and her sister play a game called “Ten Best Showers,” in which they challenge each other to name the most enjoyable showers of their lives.

It felt like an odd topic, given the mundane nature of daily bathing; the game veers from the normal challenge of naming favorite movies or books. Given time, I could come up with a list of my favorite books, but showers? A pretty thin concept, I thought.

Until the shower renovation began.

“You know what would improve things?” I asked the farmer over dinner one evening.

He looked up from his plate, eyebrow raised, fork suspended in midair.

“A walk-in shower,” I said. I proceeded to paint a picture of a roomy shower, with spaces for shampoo bottles and a built-in bench.

“It would be tiled, with a pebble floor, and sliding glass doors,” I said, my arms swirling around. I have been less animated when describing the Grand Canyon.

“Oh, and can the tiles be sort of a mocha color?”

My pitch worked. A few days later, I returned home to find what was left of our old bathtub sitting in the middle of the living room. The farmer had pulled it out – step one of what would be a weeks-long project that included removal of the existing tile, relocation of the toilet, bolstering of floor joists in the basement, placement of new tiles, grouting, plumbing work and at least 1.2 million trips to the home store.

The disruption was vast. I am not known for my quiet tolerance of chaos. An entire week can be set off kilter by a scheduled visit from the gas meter reader.

This renovation would turn our main bathroom to temporary rubble, forcing us to brush our teeth in the powder room, and sending us to the basement to shower. The previous owners wedged a tiny bathroom into a space down there; the shower is the width of an airplane seat (coach), and the shower head juts out into half of that. Because it’s not possible to turn around in there, I alternate my days between a clean back and a clean front.

For weeks I would hear sounds of progress – the grinding of the tools and the swearing of the farmer. Occasionally, he would ask my opinion of colors and textures, but otherwise I stayed out of it.

Until last weekend, when the farmer invited me in for a look. The place at the end of the room where the shower curtain had hung in gray waves was now transformed. The new shower was the exact color of mocha.

“You can help me put on the doors,” the farmer said, not knowing what he was asking. The doors, which some four burly men had delivered in boxes to the basement, had to somehow be carried upstairs to be seated in the tracks. We managed to accomplish this, with a lot of swear words and a couple of medium-sized fights.

But you should see it. Our new shower is a thing of sleek, modern, functional beauty. The farmer got the first shower, of course, and then it was my turn.

The pebbled floor felt like nature beneath my feet; the shower head delivered a strong, hot blast; the doors glided like blades across ice. There was room for all my bottles, and there was room for me to turn around.

It was the best shower ever.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.