When I was a child showers were magical things they had in America. In Ireland, we had baths...once a week. I didn’t experience the joy of a shower until 1973, when my brother came out as a handyman, rigged a hose to the bath tap, hung a shower head on a nail, and lined the bathroom walls with tile-on-a-roll, a ‘70s sensation.
It was grand for about a month. After that, you had to hold the peeling tile-on-a-roll in place with one hand while trying to shower with the other.
Still, I loved that shower and it beat the usual routine—us kids taking turns in the same lukewarm bathwater as my father crooned “If you wash me in the water where you washed your dirty daughter, I’ll be cleaner than the whitewash on the wall.”
Baths? I loathed them. The shower used less water so even with hot water in short supply, you could have a shower every day. And I did. I was probably the most hygienically clean, germ-free adolescent in North Dublin.
Looking back, my obsession with cleanliness was likely a reaction to my mother’s lack of it. In 18 years of living at home, I saw her take a bath only once, before being admitted to a drying-out clinic. Her normal routine was to strip down to her vest and skirt at the kitchen sink and give herself a quick wipe-down with a facecloth: arms, neck, face. Suffice to say she didn’t smell the sweetest. Just one more item on the list of things that mortified me: a tipsy, malodorous mother, a slightly unhinged father, lopsided homemade clothes, elephant ears, and a nickname to top it all off—Deirdyweirdy.
I was the textbook shy, retiring type. I tried to be invisible, but it’s hard when everything about you makes you a target for ridicule and bullying. Over time I realised that the meek hadn't a chance of inheriting the earth, so I learned to fake confidence. I embraced the weirdness, leaned into the laughs and grew up to become the clown you all know and love!
After all, if you have to do the time, you may as well do the crime.
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Posted in response to galenkp's weekend experience
prompt asking "Are you confident and outgoing or shy and reserved? and Shower or bath? What's your preference and why?
The images are mine