Bathtub in a Box

“I’m the only one who didn’t inherit the bathtub gene,” my oldest son says.  “Everyone else takes baths for hours.  They’re not done ‘till the hot water’s gone.”

My oldest and I are both shower people.  The last time we took baths was when we lived in England and had no choice.  Our house there was huge and full of bathrooms; bath rooms, not shower rooms.  We were happy to come back to the States and return to washing while standing up.

This might change.  Right now there’s a never-used whirlpool bath in the hallway, questioning my washing stances.  It’s calling my name, like cookies just out of the oven, or like Abercrombie calling the General’s name when she’s within five miles of the mall.  Stances and good credit hide in another room without plumbing.

Charlie took a week off to bring the upstairs bathroom up to or beyond Civil War standards.  The first day he pulled a muscle in his back.  This is not the first or second time he’s done exactly that.  He walks around unable to turn his head, like he’s wearing an invisible neck brace.  I give him backrubs with hopes of getting in the bath by the end of the week.  He thinks I’m being generous.  I’m just stinky.

The Vegan saw the bath in a box in the garage.  Charlie asked him to help him carry it upstairs and the Vegan left his chat room mid-sentence.  “Are you going to have this ready by 9 pm tonight?” he asks, “because that’s when I want to take my bath.”

Charlie figured he could be serious and tell him he hasn’t removed the old tub and doesn’t even know how much dry rot he’s going to have to replace, or he could turn the questioning around and bother the Vegan. 

Naturally, he chose option B.  “When are you going to bring your girlfriend over so we can all meet her?” 

“No,” the Vegan says.  “Nope.  Not.”

“I need to tell you about the birds and the bees.  All of us, including your girlfriend, have to sit down and talk about this and how you need to keep your distance from her physically.  We don’t want any babies around here.”

“No!  Nope!  Not!”

“I need to give you some fatherly advice about women.  I was really good with the women,” Charlie says.  “Before your Mom, of course.  I had my way with them.  Let me tell you all about it.”

“No!  No!  Stop!”

The Vegan not only ran off, he ran all the way out of the house.  He opened the door to leave.  Then, when no one but Charlie was looking, he flipped him off.  It’s become his favorite thing: flip Charlie off when nobody is looking but Charlie.  Charlie acts hurt and upset, says, ‘Did you see that?’ and the Vegan laughs and runs out.  I’m not sure the nosy neighbors know it’s a game.

In the ensuing calmness, Charlie gets out the sledgehammer destroys the peace, our eardrums, and the old tub.  He can barely swing the sledgehammer, but this doesn’t slow him down.  When the tub is destroyed, however, he can’t move enough to take the heavy cast-iron remnants out of the bathroom.  Luckily, the Vegan has friends.  One of them, Bobb whose real name is John, stops by.

“What are you doing right now?” Charlie asks.

“I have a feeling you’ll tell me,” he says.

Bobb/John, carries out big garbage containers full of broken-up old tub.

“Where’ve you been lately?”

“I was at my Grandma’s funeral,” Bobb/John says. 

“Oh, sorry.”

“It’s okay.  She just had her teeth cleaned two days before she died. She was 100 years old.  Nobody cried.  She had a great life.  And guess what?  I have another Grandma.”

“You just met her?”

“I didn’t know.  I asked my relatives, ‘Why have I never met this Grandma?’  They said, ‘Nobody likes her.’  Turns out she likes me.  I like her, too, but she’s old.  I played my violin for the funeral and this new Grandma says, ‘You play so nicely.  Can you play for my funeral?’  Awkward.

“She was singing along to my playing.  She tried, but she’s old.  The girl can’t sing.  So she tried humming.  That didn’t work either, but it was better than the singing so she kept going.  She was cool.”

Bobb, whose real name is John, asked if he could do anything else.  It was tempting, but we let him get back to being a kid. 

Charlie felt so productive he stopped to have a diet Pepsi. 

“No,” the General said when she saw him sitting down.  “Get it ready.  Get the bathroom done now.  Go, go, go, go!”

She waited around outside the upstairs bathroom door while Charlie pulled up flooring.  Whenever he’d open the door to go get something, she’d say, “I want to be first.”  As soon as she saw she was waiting in line way too early, like someone waiting outside the movie theatre months before Star Wars opens, she gave up and took a shower downstairs.

By now there are pieces of the floor missing so you can see right through to the downstairs bathroom.  Charlie forgot the General was down there grooming.  He measured the new bathtub against the old plumbing, looking for a way to return the whirlpool bath and get a plain, easy-to-install tub.  While checking to see if the p-trap, the drainpipe, lined up, Cheyenneh happened to look up.  He had his face pressed against the p-trap but it didn’t look good.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said before he could explain he wasn’t looking at her and didn’t see anything anyway.  “I have another job for you.” 

She soon came upstairs and handed Charlie two windshield wipers and a side-view mirror for her car.

“You need to put these on now.”

“It’s 9:00 at night.”

“Fine, I can’t see.  If it rains tomorrow, no telling what’ll happen.”

Charlie knows better than to argue with the Princess of Persuasion.  He dropped the tub work and spent the next hour putting on wiper blades.  These were the most complicated assembly wiper blades available.  If she’d purchased blades only, that would have been easy. 

Charlie opened up the package, threw the directions away, and went outside to install them.  Soon he was back inside reading the once-discarded directions.  The General wouldn’t excuse him until she gave the blades a test-drive.  She wouldn’t let him sit down until he adjusted them a few times.

Then she brought out this goofy mirror film to put over a broken side mirror.  We didn’t ask how she broke her passenger side mirror.  We don’t ask why she’s got syrup and shaving cream in her car, either. 

“This isn’t going to work,” Charlie said.  “Your mirror is too broken.”

“Can you go with me to get it repaired?”

“Okay, I’ll go with you sometime.”

“Now.”

“It’s 9:30 at night.”

“You have an excuse for everything,” she said as she went up to her room. 

I’m excited about the new, relaxing whirlpool bath.  I think I’ll let the General go first.  It’d be more relaxing for everyone that way.

A little help? [] 11:18:19 PM