Friend can you spare a shower? There are many schmultzy warm fuzzy reasons for friendship. However, recently I uncovered a reason that should always remain in the top three benefits of friendship: If you don’t have water, they will gift you a shower. I discovered this very critical hidden benefit of friendship when the city was repairing pipes by the bridge, and we had no water for ten days.
It’s amazing what you can learn about your friends if you start showering at their house. All my friends were incredibly generous and welcoming when I asked, which goes to reason, since you don’t want your friends walking around town all greasy-haired and funky. They are, afterall, your friend.
You can tell a lot about how formal/casual a person is when you ask them. It’s a Tuesday and some will say, “Sure, come over on Thursday at 9am.” While others respond, “You need one right now, let’s go to my house.” Some people simply need a few days notice to get used to the idea of you coming over, want to clean the shower, offer you their best towel, some fancy homemade soaps and shampoos. Others are more casual and have more of an opendoor policy with an invitation to come over anytime unannounced, so you could go over at 8am and they would be unruffled as you blend into their daily house routine. Hey it all works for me.
Funny thing was that after a few days, word of my house-drought spread and I had friends coming up to me saying, “Hey, I hear you are taking showers all around town, how come you haven’t taken one in my house?” They wanted to know why they were not yet at shower-friendly-status. Then they would tell me the virtues of their shower, how they had lots of hot water or a brand new shower head, got offered a few baths. I promised to add them to my showering rotation, potential rift averted.
I quickly came to realize that I have at least a couple of week’s worth of friends who I know well enough to make my shower list before needing to repeat. Sweet, no? I was almost (but not quite) sad when my water came on, my nomadic showering life coming abruptly to an end. But living here, I know it’s just a matter of time before I will have to reactivate my list, and the next time it will be even longer.