Stories for the Boy: Bath Time

These came as cats, dogs, and swans.

While getting Will ready for his Sunday night bath, he pulled his usual pranks, bubbles in his hair, scaling the walls of the tub while proclaiming himself Spiderman, blowing bubbles from either end and giggling over the outcome.

You come by this behavior naturally, sport. I was the queen of bathtub shenanigans.

Before grandma and grandpa made renovations to their house, they used to have an old-fashioned tub, a heavy porcelain number, with a curved edge that was perfect for resting your neck for a soothing bath. Or, as me and your Aunt Candy used it, slicking it up with bubble bath and turning it into a slide. And you had to do it just right, or else you would pin your arm between the tub and the sink, a special level of torture that would ruin the night.

Speaking of bubble bath... your great-grandma used to buy us girls huge bottles of dime store bubble bath. Yes, we got the plastic pink cats and black poodle bottles. But we also got generous vats of pearl yellow, iridescent white bath soap in scents not found in nature.

With grandma's house built in the early part of the 1900s, our shower was in the basement, a shower head stuck over a drain, sharing an open space with the washer, dryer, drain tub, walk-out entrance, etc. You ran the risk on any given day of tending to your personal care needs and suddenly being interrupted by the Servi-Soft delivery guy or told to hurry the hell up because there was laundry to be done and we were running out of hot water.

There was a gentle slope to the concrete floor, one that was perfectly suited for slicking up with the liquid Woolworth soap, to create a soap slide for your mother and your aunt to push each other to slide thrillingly into the shower spray and hope to Jesus you didn't slam into the concrete wall behind.