in the shower

In the Shower ©

By Michael Casey

Well its May and the Bank Holiday is over, and so is Thank God my night with Arthur, my arthritis. So I was in the shower and I thought what would I talk to you about today. I had learnt about Resumation in the night while I ws wrestling with Arthur. Resumation is cremation with water, basically a large container with superheated steam that strips the body away and leaves the bones.

 Then the bones are put in a washing machine and the  resulting powder/ash remains are put in an urn as in a normal cremation, the water from the body is purified before going down the sewer. Its more ecological and uses 1/7 of the fuel/power compared to normal cremation. Burial uses all the trees so this new third option pleases the Greens. This is what I learnt from the BBC World Service. 

The original design was to used to destroy disease, Mad Cow Disease in cattle and save us all from the spread of any stuff that could become airborne when cattle were burnt. The French call the disease la JCB, because you use a JCB. Anyway the Scottish inventor then decided to scale it down and apply it to the ecological “disposal” of human remains, he intends to have one in England soon.

Having listened to this with just my Arthur for company all I’ll say is that I’ll stick with burial, but a cardboard coffin and having a sapling tree planted on top of me would be nice, my great great  grandchildren can come visit the tree, I personally think visiting graves is useless, go down the pub and raise a glass to those you loved instead. But visiting a forest, even a forest planted on the dead is fine by me. 

I was going to talk about being in the shower, when you are all alone and vulnerable, when your kids stab the shower curtain with rolled up newspaper, pretending to be just like Psycho. Or turn off the mains and pretend it’s a power cut until they have finished laughing. Or knock the door and use the toilet while you are in the shower. 

And yes they are so so very very smelly, leaving you gasping for breath as they wash their hands in the sink, which makes the water in the shower go cold. So you scream as freezing cold water hits your privates. And you rush for the bathroom window to tear it open so you can breath after your beautiful daughter’s smellathon, Olympic Gold Medal smellathon, no hidden substances needed, all her and her arse’s own work.

Down below your neighbour can see you screaming with your head out the bathroom window and your privates pushed against the bathroom window. She does not mind, her husband died a few years ago, so it’s the closest she’s been to having male company in 20 years. She hurries to fetch her binoculars, she is a bird watcher after all, only by the time she returns, only your fat hairy bum is against the bathroom window.

You return to your shower, promising yourself you’ll put a lock on the bathroom door, or have at least 2 bathrooms if ever you win the lottery. In the shower you flex your muscles and say to yourself you have as many muscles as Stallone, in fact you have as many bellies as Stallone has muscles. If you really really hold in your stomach you can actually see your toes in the shower, but looking at your toes you don’t like your toe nails so you let your stomach flop down again.

You look for your tea tree shampoo, only the girls have used it to wash the cat in, as it will help the cat climb trees so you use their shampoo instead. Only its conditioner and doesn’t seem right, so you reach for anther container and that seems to work only there isn’t enough to do your hairy back and torso too. So you reach for a third container while you still have suds in your eyes, only it’s not shampoo. 

It’s Flash cream bathroom cleanser, and you have just put some on your naughty bits. In a flash you spin around in pain, your body against the bathroom window. Your neighbour has her binoculars ready, so she enjoyed the show, the embers glow in her memory. It was only a flash, but after 20 years it was enough for now.

You hose your bits down and sigh, relief as the pain goes, but you are now perfectly perfectly clean. Your neighbour can testify to that, she may come over to borrow some flash, just to keep her lens clean.