Shower Thoughts
I didn't write a Substack this week. Then what is this, you might ask? Only one way to find out:
I was going to write a Substack this weekend, but I didn’t. And there are so many excuses reasons as to why. But I won’t burden you with any of them.
I wouldn’t dare burden you with the fact that my beloved cousins were in town, and I met my newest cousin, who is so adorable and so small that I think Baby Yoda would be able to bully him (and I’d kill Baby Yoda for doing it).
I couldn’t dream of telling you that I won’t blame the Super Bowl, the legend and American badass that is Bad Bunny, nor the fact that I spent most of the game revising a play I’ve written.
Who would I be if I were to blame the fact that I looked at some new apartments this weekend, one of which was ok, while the other had no A/C (air conditioning) in the bedroom, but had 1 A/C (a cockroach) in the living room?
Because not one of these is truly why I did not write a Substack.
I didn’t write a Substack for the same reason some people never write the Next Great American Novel, or file their taxes on time, or reach out to that friend they’ve been thinking about: because I came up with the idea while in the shower.
"The shower: It’s like Las Vegas for ideas” - David Meyer.
What gets thought of in there, stays in there.
It’s like as soon as I walk past the curtain, everything I’ve pondered goes down the drain with the water. I think I may have cured diseases in the shower, or perhaps found the path to world peace. I know I at least had a great idea for a Substack. But alas, all of that is gone. So now I have to write about showers instead.
Why do we think so deeply there in the first place? Is it the water or the motion of the water? If I lived beneath a waterfall, would I be the next Socrates? gasp Soak-rates?1
Of course, I can have great ideas anywhere. Like these ones that just came to me on dry land:
Maybe in ‘Psycho’, Janet Leigh was really screaming in the shower because she forgot a good joke she’d come up with. And Norman Bates came in just to help her write it down (in blood). See? He’s so misunderstood.
or
Is a shower cap just a waterproof thinking cap?
or
Was the worst part of King Midas’ curse that he could only take golden showers?
These amazingly brilliant ideas are only the beginning. I’m sure I could come up with even better thoughts if only I were writing this on my laptop in the shower.
Maybe we have such good ideas in the shower because our brains are cruel, and they (our brains) know we won’t be able to get the thoughts down on paper fast enough. Just to be mean.
Now, true, sometimes I do leap out of my shower, gracefully, of course, so that I can reach for my phone and either voice memo or tap out a note of the idea I’ve had. But I know it’s never my best idea. The best idea most certainly washed out with my shampoo and conditioner.23
For example, yesterday, I leapt out of the shower to record a voice note. My wet finger pressed on the phone, and I started the recording. And you know what I recorded?
This:
My mom always said to take shorter showers because I was “wasting water.”
And I’d say, “That’s rich coming from you. You dropped a whole bunch of water when you were about to give birth to me.”
See? That can’t have been the best idea I had in there. It can’t be…right?
Although in writing this, I think I’ve jogged my memory a little. I came up with something else shower-related, but neither bridal- nor baby-related…something like this:
I spent a summer in high school caddying. But it was shower caddying, which pays much worse as no one has any pockets in which to carry your tips.
Not bad, but that wasn’t it either.
Wait! Maybe:
If you’re the type of person to waste water, you probably don’t have a garden. That’s why they say you’re either a showerer or a growerer.
Close, but not quite. It seems the best joke I had is lost to time and water. We’ll just have to accept these substitutes.
Woe is me, and such is life. I’m despondent. I’m heartbroken. I might have a little BO. I think I need a shower to calm me down.
And who knows what I might think of while I take it?
I’ll tell you: Not me, once I step out of it. Not me.
This joke is not good enough to have been thought of in the shower.
These are separate, by the way, not 2-in-1. I am an adult.
Yes, they are tear-free. Why do babies get to have all the shampoo that won’t sting? They’re crying all the time anyway (except for my new cousin. No one and no shampoo will make him cry. I volunteer my eyes as tribute).
It is called “Threshold Memory Loss”. When you cross a threshold, you see new stimuli and lose the thought you had before crossing the threshold. Like when you go upstairs to get your keys and the minute you step into your bedroom (new stimuli), you forget why you are there. You go back to the kitchen (old stimuli - the surrounding that was there when you first had the thought), and you remember again to go upstairs for your keys. In other words, return to the shower (cross the threshold) and you will remember the great ideas you had - they did not pour down the drain after all.