I don’t mean like “nudge-nudge wink-wink… yanno, stuff” kind of stuff. I mean, do you read, play on your phone, eat and drink, or things like that in the bath?
It’s one of those things I hear other people talk about doing (mentioning how they’d like to have a bath with their book and a glass of wine or the like), but never do myself. I spend a lot of time in the bath, especially as the weather gets colder, because it helps with my chronic pain and is one of the only ways I’ve found to get some relief from that sick bone-cold feeling. And I do sometimes wish I had some entertainment so I could hang out longer and not get bored, but I’m afraid of damaging things by getting them wet. I know most phones are water-resistant, but it still feels wrong.
So, what about you? Do you read, eat/drink, use your phone, or do other things in the bath? Or is it strictly soaking?
I don’t have a bathtub that fits me, but when I was in college and living in a tiny campus apartment all I had was a bath – no shower. I would usually scroll my phone for a few minutes when I first dipped in and was soaking up the warmth, but then soon got to the scrubbing and cleaning part. The bath water cooled too quickly to really enjoy a good soak.
When I lived in a house with an outdoor hot tub, that was a different story. I would take a book with me and sit for an hour or so and read by the light of an old white gas Coleman lantern. I sure miss that thing.
One of my goals in this house is to install a hot tub.
These days I rarely if ever take a bath, but when I was younger I used to make my bath as hot as I could stand and then get in and relax while reading a book. My ex used to take baths fairly often, and there was a TV on the wall that she would watch. She could spend hours in the bathtub, but I could never spend that long. I would get bored after 20 minutes, or when the bathed cooled off, and get out.
Back in the day, when bathtubs were long enough to keep most of your body submerged, I used to read a book while smoking, once in a while letting out some cold and adding some hot. This was my daily routine. In the last 20 odd years I have probably had 5 baths and, in the modern truncated tubs, they have been perfunctory.
For a tub soak, a book and a beverage are mandatory. My cats usually think at least one of them needs to be in the bathroom with me. I worry about electronics slipping and getting soaked, so I stick to hard copy books, usually paperback (easier on my wrists, cheaper to replace in the very rare event of being dropped into the water).
35 years ago, before cell phones, laptops or other electronics, I was in grad school and decided that a soak in a hot bath and a long phone conversation with my best buddy was what I needed to relax after a stressful day. I didn’t even have a cordless phone, just one of the old heavy rotary dial phones with a long enough cord to bring into the bathroom.
But 10 minutes into the conversation, my friend realized that I was in the bath, gave me a quick but very stern scolding about the dangers of using a phone in the tub, and told me to hang up immediately. And he called back an hour later and warned me to never do it again. All these years later, I’m getting a bit hot under the collar as I remember it, and I’ve never used a phone or any electronics in the tub since then.
On the rare occasion that I’ll take a long bath, (usually for medicinal purposes), usually I’ll take my phone and play a podcast to listen to while I’m soaking otherwise I’ll get bored.
I do not hold my phone or have it anywhere near the tub. The podcast episode gets set up and the play button gets pressed before any water even appears in the tub. I’ve never dropped anything in a bathtub, but I have certainly dropped my phone in a puddle during or after a rainstorm. And it’s always on my mind and I will not risk doing that.
The phone usually stays on a shelf, or on a sink, usually at least five or six feet away from the tub.
I’ve tried reading a couple of times in the tub but it always felt like a hassle to keep my hands dry so I wasn’t getting wet fingerprints all over the pages. I’ve also just set my tablet (safely outside the tub) with a movie or video and watches that instead. I only really do a full-on bath in times of severe illness or muscle injury though so it’s been a while.
On the rare occasions when I take a bath, I do it right: Get the music going on the radio, lay a board across the tub, put a few beers on it, and a book, and an ashtray.
An ashtray? Sure, because if I’m going to do a bath right, it’ll need a fine cigar with all of the above.
Yes, I used to read in he tub. It never really lasted all that long, but I pretty much only read my laptop these days so no way am I risking that in the tub.
I spend time pulling compression stockings onto my legs; they’re thigh length, tight as hell but just what the doctor ordered. It’s easy to do if I sing a musical number while doing so.
At one time ~20 years ago I had a house with a big oval jacuzzi tub. Truly the first tub I ever lived with that was remotely big enough for one adult, much less two. Even so, it was easily a foot too short for my gargantuan 5’10" stature (sarcasm alert: 5’10 is just barely 50th percentile height for a male). I tried to like it, I really did. But having most of my torso wet and out in the air, or having my knees folded up and sticking out in the cold air, or having my feet and ankles out an in the cold air just sucked. Even if the bathroom is heated to 80F, once you’re wet the evaporation off your exposed skin makes that feel cold.
It’d take 10 minutes to fill with hot water, and just 5 minutes for the water to cool to tepid. Make that 3 minutes if you turned on the jacuzzi feature. I had 80 gallons of hot water at the ready in that house and I could use all of it in about 15 minutes keeping that tub above that annoying lukewarm sensation.
I can sit for hours in a true hot tub / jacuzzi spa-thingy maintained at 104F or more. When I had one of those it got a lot of use. A bathtub? I cannot imagine a less comfortable half-wet half-cool half-cold experience. Uggh. But at least it’s all hard surfaces with an awkward layout.
I’m happy for the folks who enjoy that experience. I’ll be elsewhere.