03 December 2005 20:33
Johnny's Guide to Surviving Cold ShowersFirst let me present my credentials: Walking into a rural Jamaican bathroom and saying "oh! you have hot water!" is about as common as walking into a rural American house and saying "oh! you have a jacuzzi in every bathroom!". As in, it just doesn't happen. Seeing as I've spent my fair share of nights in the country here, I've taken my fair share of cold showers. The city tends to be a bit more "civilized", but only as long as the electricity is being civilized. My introduction was brutal and thorough. My first nine days in Jamaica were spent without electricity. What had I gotten myself into?
...and if your mind's in the gutter, this post will be a disappointment to you.
First of all let me point out that not all cold showers are created equal. There's cold showers where the water comes from a black plastic tank sitting on the roof in the sun. Those are "chilly". There's cold showers where the water comes from a concrete cistern on the roof. These are "cold". Then there's showers where the water tank spends all day sitting in the shade under some trees up on a mountain side where the air temperature is 10º lower than down in the plain. These showers are "life threatening".
Next let me point out that there can be other variables in the equation which will affect your shower. The most notable of these goes by the adorably cute phrase of "wind chill factor". (I will take a second to point out that many homes in the Caribbean are very open to the elements...a cool breeze wafting through the house is the only source of air conditioning. It does a pretty good job of "wafting" through the bathroom at near gale force as well unless you're fortunate enough to have closeable glass instead of louvers). The second most notable variable is the time of day. That cistern that sits on top of the roof will receive some nominal heating from the sun, but during the daytime hours only. That very same cistern will do an excellent job of exposing the water inside to the lower ambient temperatures that reside at rooftop level during the night. Not to mention that concrete is porous, thereby allowing water to slowly evaporate. I need not remind you that evaporation is the very same process that cools our bodies. The coldest shower I've ever had was at six o'clock on a January morning in St. Elizabeth at around 2000' above sea level. With an ambient temperature of 59 or 60ºF there was a brisk breeze of about 12 knots coursing its way through the bathroom...in addition to a water temperature that was COLD to the touch (55ºF?)--my misery was acute.
Let me quickly add a fourth variable, this being light. When the electricity is not there to run the hot water heater, the electricity will not be there either to run the lights. Let me inform you from personal experience that taking a COLD shower by candlelight or in utter darkness is a completely demoralizing experience. Psychologically, the darkness will cut 5º from your temperature no questions asked.
The preliminaries aside, let's delve into methods.
First, it is scientific fact that cold water will make your muscles spasm. To test this, first watch some Hollywood movie where an actor falls through some ice into a lake and holds their breath for six minutes until they find the hole again or somebody chops them a new one. Then go chop a hole in your local frozen pond and jump in...and hold your breath for six minutes. Just don't be surprised when you find yourself expelling your breath before the water's above your neck as the cold hits your torso.
Now what happens when your breath is involuntarily forced from you? Most people make weird noises--some grunt, some groan, and some squeak. As your diaphragm spasms; guess what, your vocal chords are too. I tried expelling my breath before jumping in--I still made strange noises. So I took a more direct approach: the motto goes, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em". If I can't avoid losing my breath, then by all means I'm gonna enjoy doing it. I've found that singing loudly while diving under the showerhead works wonders.
This has a two-fold purpose. One, to keep you from making odd noises against a background of silence (you still make odd noises, but now it sounds like you meant to make them). And two, it's distracting (not only to you, but also to hide the odd noises you do end up making). Hand in hand with distracting yourself, it keeps you pumped up adrenaline-wise. Otherwise you're going to stall...which can be rather unfortunate if you've already lathered up and are in need of a good rinse.
Methods aside, let's talk application.
Here we go step by step. First of all, don't think about it. Just do it. If you're one of those pansies who gets into a swimming pool on a 103º day millimeter by millimeter gasping each time the water creeps another quarter inch up your swimming trunks, then you're going to have trouble with this. The trick is to be bold, and ask your body for forgiveness later.
Hop in, turn the water on, and instinctively wait for it to get warm. This habit can take months to overcome, so don't bother with it now. Forty-five seconds are usually enough to help you figure out that the water's never gonna get warm {ominous drum roll}.
When you're ready to dive in, take a few short convulsive breaths, expelling them violently (puffing your cheeks and everything) with your diaphragm. If you've ever delievered a baby or were a fighter pilot, you can do this in your sleep. Remember, you are bigger and badder than the water...you can take anything it throws at you (so long as it doesn't hurt).
Next, take a solid breath and launch into song. Don't pick a pretty one, and there are a multitude of reasons why this is so. Here are two:
- Bathrooms abound with acoustically reflective surfaces such as tile and fiberglass. Staying on tune takes concentration, something you're going to be very short of in a few seconds.
- If you're doing this right, then the neighbor's can hear you: While singing may keep you from making funny noises, you will notice a definite pause in tempo when you first step in; and then decided surges and decelerations in tempo depending on what part of your anatomy is suffering at the moment. These irregularities of tempo are suffered more readily by a not-so-pretty song.
Beer drinking songs are good (if you're into that sort of thing), or anything that has continuous vocals meant to be sung loud and strong. Pop songs that pause at the end of each line for little guitar frills are bad. You can always go with my personal favorite of "Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles. (There's a story behind this that I might divulge later). If you're Irish, you shouldn't have any problems with this.
Once you've got the song going, remember to get going. You're song's only going to be so long. When it runs out...you're in trouble.
You can choose several methods of attack. You can start with an extremity (arm or leg) and work your way in. You can shoulder in, you can stick your head in, commence a full out charge, or back in. Whichever you choose; make it quick, fast, rapid, and sure. There's no backing down. Back down now and you're psychologically beaten. You need to keep the psychological game going, think fast, think "this will be over soon", think "we all live in a yellow...". Your best friend right now is friction. Anything that's in contact with water, rub vigorously or risk seeing it turn blue. My method of attack depends on what type of shower I'm in, and this is where I forgot to mention a fifth variable to coldness.
There are two types of showers in Jamaica. Those with shower heads, and those without. Showerheads are apparently a convenience luxury item, and I've taken a number of showers in a solid stream of water from a 1/2 inch pvc pipe. Unfortunately, these cause a lot of collateral damage. With a showerhead you have a definite cone of influence, and interrupting it with a defenseless shoulder doesn't cause much damage around the periphery with splashing. A solid stream of water on the other hand, has a terrible amount of localized impact. A direct result then is the splattering of water everywhere, scattering droplets of liquid ice all over your body in areas that are not yet prepared for the onslaught.
With a showerhead, one can move in segments. First the head, good. Now an arm, retreat, get breath, good. Now the other arm, retreat, get breath good. And so forth. Not so without a showerhead. Getting an arm also splatters water over torso and legs, getting your head in scatters them down your backside--an experience in and of itself. Showering without a showerhead requires more psychological deviousness. Start by shoving your shoulder into the stream. "ACK! Red Alert! Get Out Now!" is what your body hears. That's fine, so long as you've pre-programmed your response. Instead of reversing direction, get out by going on through--and losing a significant portion of your surface body temperature at the same time. If you are an auditory learner, it sounds like this: "WE ALL LIVE IN A . YELLOW ... SUBMARINE! A YELLOW SUBMARINE! .. A YEL . LOW SUBMAR . INE! WEEE ALL LIVE IN A ... whew! {breath} {breath} {breath} ...hello, is this Lowes Hardware? Oh yes? Good, I was just wondering how much you would charge to ship a hot water heater to Jamaica? ...Jamaica. J - A - M - A...".
Our objective with this stage one attack is merely to douse 50 to 75% of your surface area with water and wet your hair down good. (Girls, I know you tend to do weird things with your hair that take 45 minutes in the shower; but really, for your sake I suggest you shorten it up a little when there's no hot water. {dodges thrown items, dagger-like glares, crazy claims that 45 minutes is preposterous, and wild, slightly incoherent accusations that the reason for no hot water is directly tied to the previous shower-taker being a brother in the first place}).
You're back out of the water, at least 50% wet, and gasping for air. You're ready for stage two. Keep humming your song, because you're going to need it in a bit. Right now we're not even a full minute into our shower--it shouldn't take you long to realize that having dry spots on your skin is perfectly acceptable under the circumstances. Now we continue to call on our most powerful friend of the moment, Friction. Lather on some soap and scrub it in. The faster and more violently you spread it around, the warmer you'll get. Keep moving and keep humming! Right now you're in imminent danger of succumbing to wind chill despite not being directly in the water.
By the time you finished this, we're still shy of the two minute mark, but you're starting to believe those people on the Discovery Channel who told you you'd die of hypothermia in three minutes if you'd gone down with the Titanic in the North Atlantic. Fortunately for you, you've started to go slightly numb before you need to complete the third stage: rinsing.
The problem with this is you've now got soap all over the place. Instead of a 50 or 75% dousing like you did before, you've now got to get everywhere. Worse yet, if you've got a soap with a strong pH, it's going to take it a bit to fully rinse off...this means holding position. However, keep the psychological barrier's going, and by all means, burst fully into song again. If you have a showerhead, start with your head, rinse your arms, then stick various parts of your front side in in "tolerable" doses (shoulders, hips, legs). Continue rubbing and whatever you do, save the backside for last.
Due to the concave nature of your backside, full immersion is pretty much unavoidable to completely rinse off. Believe me, cold water hitting your back and the backs of your legs will bring life to a standstill of torment. If nothing else, your song will going to grind to a less than harmonious halt. Save your backside for last so that when your knees start to buckle, you can stagger out and be done with it. You'll find soap suds on your towel, but somehow it won't seem to be worth going back in to get what you missed. You'll realize that there are more important things in life than a thorough shower, and most of these things involve lots of sunshine.
That's pretty much "it" in a very large nutshell. Hope you never have to put it into practice.
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About year ago I was helping out a work crew from Weavers who came down to put the roof back on the main building at Maranatha. We had a very good time, and I spent a couple nights there in between runs to Kingston to keep things going there. But it was a little odd to be a young twenty-something amidst a group of five or so men who each had a half century (or close enough to it) under their belts. I was pleased (albeit somewhat surprised) that I was able to interact so well with them, it was almost like there was no generational gap at all.
The Maranatha dorms are the ones lacking showerheads, and the school is placed on a ridgetop. This means the wind really does literally howl through the bathroom. I had to come up with something to get me through each shower, and happened to be humming "Yellow Submarine" on my way to shower one morning. Since the dorms aren't exactly sound-proof, all of the men heard me going at it with the volume knob cranked way over to the right. The rest of the day was filled with good-natured complaints about some song that some miscreant had gotten stuck in their heads that morning...so it kinda stuck. It's got good memories attached to it. I was honored to be considered "one of the guys" by five of my elders.
20:33 email me permalink / commentary (4)
*headdesk* 04 December, 2005 23:45 – 
Samantha
This is the stuff that publishers love : ) 06 December, 2005 01:45 – Jenn Heatwole
love and hate are hard to tell apart sometimes... 06 December, 2005 18:08 – Brendan
very nice 09 December, 2005 22:32 – aduma
