On the Distance Between Hot and Cold

There are those mornings when you wake up and the air is chilly and your bed is warm and you feel, like Homer Simpson put it, “Ah, I’m just big toasty cinnamon bun. I never want to leave this bed.” On those mornings, the cozy comforts of your bed are just about the most soothing place in the world to be…unfortunately, life oftentimes requires you to leave the succor of those sheets. While there is no competition for the pure indulgence of a warm bed, the silver medal has to go to a nice hot shower. Getting that shower into the comfort zone, though, can be a mind-numbingly difficult task.

Every house, every apartment, and every bathroom has its own little quirks. From a light switch that you have to jiggle to get it to stay on, to a toilet whose plunger has to be held for a frame-perfect amount of time, to a faucet that has to be coddled and praised just to get the water pressure above a trickle, there are tips and tricks each and every one of us learns to get the things we use to do the things we need. At your own humble abode, you know these tricks, you practice them every day, and you may even give your guests a few pro tips to aid them in their solo adventures in the WC.

The real trouble lies when you go someplace unfamiliar, without the sage advice of one trained in the art of making that particular bathroom hum. I recently had one of these experiences and BOY was it annoying. I was staying in a fairly random hotel in deepest Brooklyn and it was freezing out…actually with wind-chill, it was well, well below freezing. So, of course, what I wanted above all else when I finally made it off those frigid streets was a nice hot shower. That’s when I ran into one of life’s many tests of patience. The shower there was lackluster from the get-go. The water pressure was pathetic and the towels were starchy. Whatever, it’s fine, life goes on. The real problem, however, was that no matter how far I turned the lever towards hot, the water was still chilly at best…until you hit that 1-atom-wide inflection point where the water goes from glacier-run-off-cold to molten-lava-hot.

I’m not asking for a lot when I stay at a budget hotel, but what I am asking for is just a little bit more space between hot and cold! I don’t want to freeze my cheeks off in the shower but I’m also not interested in jumping out with my skin as red and sensitive as a tomato…and I don’t think that’s too much to ask for! So, when faced with this problem, the only solution is to reach your arm as far as possible, while keeping your body out of the water and perform brain surgery on the handle trying to hit that sweet spot like your life depended on it. Finally, you hit it and it’s like nirvana…until you realize you’ll have to do this exact same song and dance tomorrow, ugh.

What about you? How do you handle this Gordian Knot of a problem?