How to Enjoy Your Morning Shower

Lately I’ve not wanted to shower. I know, gross, right? But it’s not that I don’t want to shower, it’s that I don’t want to shower in our bathroom. It’s so cramped that you have to sidle behind the toilet to slide open the shower door and turn on the water. There are no windows and the fan doesn’t do much to keep the mold at bay. Pretty! I won’t even go into the gold palm tree no-slip decals in the tub.

This is one of those mental attitudes that needs to be checked before it turns into a full blown “thing” – as in “I have a thing about spiders” – and I turn into Howard Hughes. So I’ve come up with some ideas about how to improve my morning shower without taking a sledgehammer to the walls.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Keep the bathroom clean – it may be coffin like but if it’s clean at least it sparkles a bit.
   
   Light a soy candle
   
   Switch up your shampoo – I use those free samples from Total Beauty Supply to break my shampoo routine and the new fragrances are a nice jolt for the senses.

2. Don’t shower alone – this one is sort of obvious.
   
   Work out right before your shower – this feels especially good as you can use the shower to cool off.
   
   Keep the door open – unless you have a dark imagination involving Norman Bates, this will help lessen the claustrophobia.

3. Get a filter and a new shower head – your body soaks up a lot of the minerals and chlorine in the local water and a filter would keep your skin from drying out (and save on your color job). A new shower head turns that police riot-hose blast into a gentle Amazon rain.
   
   Use your time wisely – this is your chance to plan your day in advance so be thinking about how it’s going to be a good day and what you will accomplish.
   
   Get in and get out – with California’s current water shortage, maybe it’s best to just get the hell out as fast as possible and save you ruminations for the daily commute.