Splish Splasjh in my Bath

Splish Splash in my Bath ©

By

Michael Casey

In the bath we are all alone with our thoughts, just me or you in the bath lying there soaking. We lie there like a hippo, water all around us, lapping at the edge of the bath, occasionally bursting over the top onto the bathroom floor.

The bath is a place of peace, and hot water, provided the wife isn’t washing the dishes while you are washing  your tum and all other parts. So it’s a rush to fill the bath before the wife fills the washing up bowl in the kitchen sink.

Otherwise we lie there with just our thoughts for company as we feel the warmth of the water. Lotions and potions are stolen from the wife’s collection of this and that. Competing smells waft around the bath and into the air in the bathroom. You turn a different shade of pink, your toes and fingers turn into prunes.

Sometimes you bring in a radio for company and music, as you soak the steams runs down the tiles in the bathroom, and steams up the bathroom window.

You drift to different places in your mind as you are entombed in the warmth of the bath. You are back in the womb, secure and warm and listening to music.  A baby can hear in the womb before birth, now you imitate that again. The radio blares out and you sing along.

Why do we sing in the bath? In the old days it was because there was no lock on the door, now it’s because we are free, free to be ourselves in the bath. I of course sing “If I were a Rich Man” going my best Topol impersonation.

Dreams visit us in the bath, we are relaxed and clean. We may even shave while in the bath, so from head to toe we are clean warm and relaxed. Clean feet do make all the difference, we sigh and clean between all our toes. Now we understand why the Romans enjoyed Bath and baths so much.

A bath as big as a small swimming pool, or even a swimming pool itself would be so nice, we muse as we close our eyes as we listen to Peter Gabriel singing Steam. If only we had some money we sigh as we break into “If I were a Rich Man”  again, Topol seems to return whenever we are in the bath.

Dreams  appear and spiral into the air along with the steam, we are in our own private world without distractions to attract our eye. Just the white of the bathroom, the white and the purity of our dreams. We top up the hot water, and sink lower into the suds of the wife’s bubble bath.

Gentle relaxing bath, a gentleman’s way to wash. Showers are for kids, for haste, for Americans. For those who claim they are saving water, but wasting tranquility. That’s what it’s all about really, a bath is not just for washing, it’s for inner peace.