Monday 5 May: Showering in the dark; or, The exploding light bulb

I woke early, probably because Sunday night is the quietest evening in Trastevere. It was still dark when I got into the shower. My bathroom is typical of many in Europe: tiny, dark, and windowless. There is a tub, and it has a hand-held shower hose. Here’s the problem: the hose is one meter, and I’m six foot three. To compound things, there is of course no shower curtain or shower door. Well, I can’t sit in the tub because of my bad knee, so I shower standing. With the short hose, this means that I shower every morning bent over at first, washing my hair and showering the top half, then stand up straight and finish everything south of my belly button. I’m sure you get the picture (or maybe you don’t want to).

Anyway, as I was washing my hair this morning, the hose slipped from my hand. Since the water was on, the hose began to whiplash everywhere and drenched the room, including the light bulbs of the two tiny fixtures providing the only light in the room. Now, what do you suppose happens to a hot light bulb if you splash water on it? It sounds like a science experiment, but you may not want to use it for your kid’s science fair project. Of course the bulbs exploded, both plunging me into total darkness and spraying the floor with shards of broken glass. The lack of light was not actually a big deal, since shampoo was streaming into my eyes anyway. I managed to get the hose under control, rinse my hair, and carefully make my way out of the bathroom without stepping on glass.

I learned later that day that my Italian is good enough to buy light bulbs at the tobacco store (where you buy most necessities). The rest of the day seemed fairly uneventful after my exciting early-morning shower.