I’m living in a dorm, and the showers here suck immensely. Yes, immensely. There is no rhyme or reason to the water temperature here.
For instance, I might get in the shower at, oh, say, 1 PM. As far as I know, this is not a common time for showers. It’s early afternoon, many people are in class. There might be, tops, one otherperson in the shower in the entire building. I’ll turn on the water, and it’ll be nicely warm…for about 3.2 seconds. Then, the water will turn lukewarm, even a bit chilly. Not comfortable for showering in. Plus, I swear, hot water does a better job washing hair.
After about 10 minutes of me cringing in the back corner of the shower, the hot water might come back enough for me to be comfortable in the stream of water. Then, however, people will suddenly feel a need to use the can. They will flush. Again and again. Each flush will bring with it a stream of hothotHOT water.
This will happen no matter WHEN I take a shower. If I take it when it’s crowded…no hot water. I take it when no one’s using the shower…no hot water. Plus, the other people on my floor will, for whatever reason, leave the bathroom window open. I’m allergic to cold, and, while the Zytrec is nice and wonderful, it doesn’t protect me 100%. I’ve nearly passed out in the shower because of it, the one time I ran out of Zyrtec and had to wait for my PCP back in Illinois to mail me a prescription.
I have my own house with my own lovely, large hot water heater! So imagine my surprise when I was suddenly scalded one day. Where could the cold water have gone? There was no one in the house but me? Not only that, but the cold water didn’t come back! I had to rinse my face off with a wash cloth and walk around all soapy to figure out where the cold water was going.
After much searching, I discovered the my damn dogs had chewed through a hose outside. This hose was connected to a sprinkler which was on a timer–so the water was on at the faucet. When the hose was disconnected from the timing device, out came my cold water!
Whenever I put my foot in the bath and the water is too hot, and I pull it out right away, I always imagine it cooking. I mean like I imagine the muscle tissue, inside my foot, all red and pink, and it starts turning white like when I put chopped up pink chicken meat on the frying pan and it gradually begins to change colour. Then I wonder how it would feel and what I would do if my foot really did begin to cook. And what temperature that would require.
When I’m in a bath that’s too hot, I like to imagine that I have a harem of nubile maids ready and willing to bring me cooling beers.
Perfectly normal.
PS: it’s about 42degrees before you start to cook – that’s internal temperature, I’m sure the bath-water could be some degrees hotter.
PPS: please don’t cook yourself, we’d miss you.