Pardon Me, There’s a Hair in My Shower

I spent the recent July 4th holiday, the nocturnal portions more specifically, in a rather comfy hotel room many miles from my house. This is an annual ritual due to the fact that literally anyone can buy fireworks in Florida. Everyone does, and they all begin assembling in the nature preserve a stone’s throw away from my lanai to set off their noise making toys hours before the sun goes down.

I’m convinced all of Central Florida does this just to make my head explode, but that’s not why I’m writing this post. No, friends. This writing is intended to address something I cannot unsee, unfortunately. Let me explain.

Here Comes the Rain

After a full day of strenuous activity in the Florida heat, I ventured back to said hotel room to shower and nap before heading back out for dinner which, I might add, was to be fish tacos and a non-alcoholic frozen colada. It was to be the perfect ending to a wonderful day. The problem was the weather.

My phone rudely suggested that rain, which could be heavy at times, would arrive in 89 minutes – hardly enough time to enjoy standing under a water dispensing apparatus for a time before hunkering down for a bit of well-deserved slumber.

My friends, you have to understand Florida rain to get why I couldn’t stick around in the hotel room. What native Floridians consider ‘light precipitation’ is, by most other standards, a veritable deluge of moisture not unlike what one might experience while sitting in the front row of a Meat Loaf concert.

I had to make my way over to the fish taco serving resort and get inside before the torrent of hydrogen and oxygen decided to dump its load. I also knew that once it started, I would be stranded for a while.

I Only Want a Shower

Two hours and three delicious fish tacos later, the water-laden sunshine we Floridians love to talk about had slowed to a trickle. With more thunderstorms in the forecast, I decided to make my move and get back to my hotel while I could still maintain some reasonable semblance of dryness.

As I furiously wheeled myself (I use a manual wheelchair, my friends) in the general direction of the airborne chairlift that represented my ride home, as it were, all I could think to myself was, “I only want a shower.” That’s it. A nice, cool, relaxing shower to wash away an entire day of Florida heat, perspiration, and the remnants of unavoidable contact with tourists not acclimated to stifling temps and humidity.

I finally made it back to my room, only dampened slightly by the continuing moisture parade outside. I ditched the sweaty clothes, rolled my way to the shower, and climbed in. What sweet relief. However, the ecstasy was short-lived. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied it: a hair.

It’s Not Mine

Yes ladies and gentle persons, there was an unidentified hair clinging to the shower wall directly to the left of my delicate face – and just about at eye level, too. I say ‘unidentified’ because I had hitherto not used the shower in this particular hotel room. Thus, said hair did not belong to me.

My half-disgusted, half-terrorized brain was further traumatized by the fact that I was the sole occupant of my hotel room. My wife was hundreds of miles away playing with grandkids while I wondered how on earth I was going to rid myself of this potentially toxic piece of fibrous helical protein without catching something I might eventually regret.

Touching it with my bare hand was out of the question. I couldn’t reach a washcloth or towel without stepping out of the shower and getting my wheelchair soaking wet. But I couldn’t ignore it, either. I momentarily thought to pray and ask for divine assistance, but then I decided the good Lord probably doesn’t care about rogue hair in the shower.

So instead, I kept my head down and took care of business. I decided that the hair would remain until housekeeping showed up to deal with it. Then again, they already had a chance to deal with it and blew the opportunity. For all I know, the next guy to occupy the room would go through the same traumatic experience.

So that was my Independence Day. What was yours like?