The Shower Basket

You've got the following: chamomile shampoo, Dr. Bronner's (liquid) peppermint soap, Atra shaver, Tom's natural anise toothpaste, silver tongue scraper (no kidding, and once you get used to life with no morning tongue coat, you get to like it), slightly confused toothbrush, maybe even some hair gel, all that to carry into the men's shower across the hall. So, tired of juggling all that, you either leave the stuff there subject to the occasional petty larceny of a bit of shampoo, or you get some kind of carrier.

For me it's a basket. A low basket of dark, thick wicker with a high arching handle. Looks like something that you'd fill with a bottle of de-alcoholized wine, fluted glasses, cheese, a loaf of bread and a red-checkered tablecloth for a romantic outing by the river. And of course that's exactly why I first got it. But no big. Ten years later it's working as a "stuff for the shower" basket.

The only thing is that stuff keeps hopping out of it.

That's because after I use something I like to reach out of the shower and drop it in the basket. First shampoo, then shaver, then soap, then toothbrush, toothpaste. I know it's probably unusual to do all that in the shower, but I like to get it all done at once. I've learned to shave, for example, without a mirror, just by the feel. And even though I miss a few spots now and then, I can always trim them down later with a quick check in the mirror.

It's when I start dropping things that the excitement begins. For some reason, every day something misses the basket, hops out of the basket, gets knocked out of the basket by something else, or some such thing. I never know what it's going to be. It just seems fated that something goes wrong with my basket system every day. And in a bathroom where the heat is vestigial and the winter cold is the ruling party, the last thing you want to is exit the shower stall dripping wet to chase some lost toiletry, the situation becomes amplified in intensity.

Let me count the ways. I drop the shampoo and miss the basket. I drop in the Doctor Bronner's and the little pop-up lid opens up and the bottle starts a slow bleed of tan fluid. The Bronner's bottle hits the shampoo bottle, knocking open the shampoo lid, starting an even slower leak of green stuff. The Bronner's bottle hits the tongue scraper which bounces out of the basket. The shaver misses the basket, falling on the floor, with the blade spinning off the handle, at the same time that my neighbor walks in barefoot, halting in mid-stride to enquire about the potential of additional shower-originated projectiles in the near future.

None of these things are difficult to deal with. The variety is fascinating. The challenging ones you don't see right away. You drop nothing, nothing falls out, you walk back in your room without a single apparent error in the basket delivery system, only to find out the next day that you didn't close the Dr. Bronner's lid and it has leaked through the basket onto the rug and for several months afterwards there is a sticky quality to the fabric in a one foot square area, right there.

These things amuse me. But if two or three things went wrong, I might start to wonder about what kind of day I'm going to have. Like last Thursday when I got a flat tire, caught a cold, backed into somebody's bumper causing a four inch square smudge that she felt required a 200$ paint job, got kicked in the knee while sparring with my Kung Fu instructor, and the bank double-charged me on my car payment and then bounced four checks.

On a day like that, I suppose I wouldn't miss the basket at all. Maybe that should make me worry.