Like many people, I have a shower head. But unlike most people, mine does not attach to the wall where it is supposed to.   I dont know why? I have this big pipe that comes out of the tile and the shower massager has this big long tube that just dangles into the tub. When I turn on the water, the shower massager comes to life, like a mad three headed cobra charmed in different directions. It flails around banging from wall too tub, propelling the shower curtain aside and scalding or freezing me as I try to grab it.  I have lived here for three years and during the course of my carnivalish bathing routine, I can count on flooding the bathroom with a solid inch of water. Pretty much every time.

This sounds like a problem, I know, and I have thought of fixing it a few times, with duct tape or coat hangers or a professional. But here’s the thing, while it sounds like a problem, and in all actuality, it probably IS a problem…..My flooded bathroom floor, just does not FEEL like a problem. It just doesn’t. It feels like a thing. Like a way something is. Like how you have to wait a bit for the heat in your car to feel warm or that you need to boil water before adding noodles or open a door before you walk thru it. The flooding of my bathroom has turned into just a part of my day. Once it occurs I make stepping stones out of dirty clothes. Then I can hop safely around my bathroom and I get my clothes ready for the washing machine.  Laundry stepping stones…totally brilliant, fun and absorbant.

So anyway, today a friend came by and asked to use the bathroom after I had had a shower. I explain the whole thing, about my unruly massager and the lake in my hallway….and “careful only step on the laundry stepping stones”, which today happen to be a few old sweaters.  He surveys the joint and then he says this. “why don’t you use a mop?”

” Why don’t you use a mop” …you know the thing named for the process of mopping up water.  MOP… I can honestly say this.  THAT IDEA NEVER FREAKIN OCCURRED TO ME. Not once, not even as a fleeting thought that I was too lazy to follow thru…I seriously never thought of this practical answer…..once I invented dirty laundry stones, I ceased thinking about it.

This makes me wonder suspiciously what else in my life I am doing completely wrong.  Like maybe theres a faster way to bake a sweet potato? or for instance the piece of fabric that I use as a doorknob could maybe be replaced with something more doorknob shaped even though, fabric is soft in the hand and pulling the door shut feels like I’m closing an olde timey magic hatch.

I have drawn a conclusion from this that is directly about my own self.  And just like ways to fix a problem, there are a lot of ways to look at this story, like maybe I really do have a head injury that people are afraid to tell me about, or maybe I am a doormat to circumstance? No I choose to believe this is an example of my ability to adapt to whatever comes my way.  It is a skill I didn’t realize I had. Now given the blessing of so many broken things, I draw the conclusion that whatever comes my way, I can handle it. Maybe not with skill or efficiency, but with creative soul and appreciation. This sounds a little  stuck up and braggy… but I really like it about myself, so I thought I would share, if only to remind myself of it next time something goes all wonky.