I Believe In Taking Showers

Parker Crandall

I believe in taking showers. When I was nineteen years old, I decided to put my schooling on

hold for a while and volunteer as a missionary for my church. It was very hard work and I didn’t know

what I was getting into when I arrived. I distinctly remember stepping off the plane in San Antonio, Texas

and feeling a blast of wet, sticky heat nearly knocking me over. During those two years in Texas, we had

a lot of hot days. In fact, my first summer there was the hottest summer on record for Texas. The next

summer ended up being even hotter. Needless to say, cold showers became more and more a luxury to

me. Not only was it nice to cool down at the end of the night, but it was also one of the only times I

could be alone.

Missionaries always work in twos. The missionary you were assigned to work with was called

your “companion”, and despite how well you knew this person, you ate together, lived together,

exercised together, and worked together. Sometimes, it was tiring to know that during every waking

moment of my day, there was always another person glued to my hip—except when I was in the

shower. There I was able to analyze how I really felt inside and think about my own opinions. This short

fraction of my day helped me take a quick reality check before putting the tie back on and giving life my

all.

I remember one particular evening especially. My companion and I had had a long, tiring day

with no apparent success from the efforts we were making. The bad weather added to our agitation

since we didn’t have a car and were forced to walk or bike in the rain to our appointments that ended

up falling through anyways. By the time we made it back to our apartment and began planning for the
next day, tensions were high and an argument broke out. I’m not proud of it, especially since this

missionary and I were good friends and neither one of us was prone to expressing our anger. But on this

night, the weight of our misfortunes seemed to tip us both over the edge. In that fight or flight moment

during the argument, instinctively I choose to flee. The problem was that our apartment was small and

the only room I could run to was the bathroom. As I slammed the door behind me, I gloated over having

the last word and thought to myself “you sure told him!” Then a feeling of stupidity rushed over me as

reality sunk in. I was standing in a bathroom. So I did the only thing that seemed logical to me and

turned the shower on. I hopped in and immediately broke down with emotion. If my face hadn’t been

wet, I’m sure I would have felt tears streaming down my cheeks. My anger from the argument quickly

dissolved away at this point, and replacing it were heavier thoughts rising up from my subconscious. I

thought about home and my family, about the girl who would never return my letters, about feeling lost

and alone from being surrounded by strangers. I sat on the shower floor for a long time and let the

water fall down on me. Peace began to enter my mind, and I felt as though all my worries and doubts

were being washed out of my mind and down the drain. That night, something changed in me and I

found the strength to carry on.

For many people, taking showers can be a monotonous daily chore. For some, it’s the portal that

takes them from the dream world to reality at six in the morning. For others, it’s where inspiration

comes. However one feels towards taking showers, I choose to see it this way: therapy is expensive. But

showers are cheap.