My dad was a shower Nazi.

In his defense, I suppose hot water is expensive. He wasn’t a rich man, money doesn’t grow on trees, and all that. And maybe I’ve always liked a nice long shower. But my father, by some arcane mathematical formula, determined that seven minutes was the absolute maximum amount of time that any person would ever need to spend cleaning themselves. And so throughout my teenage years, every time I’d get ready to take a shower he’d literally grab his stopwatch. I’d get a polite warning knock at five minutes or so. Then more frequent, louder knocks, all the way up to the seven minute mark.

When I, in my—justifiably, I think—righteous indignation would simply ignore his ever more angry banging on the wall, the old man would resort to going outside to the water Continue reading →