bubbletrouble

“BUBBLE TROUBLE”

When we were kids, we didn’t have a shower in our bathroom, just an old bathtub. The only time we ever took a shower was at school after Phys. Ed. Since I’ve had shower facilities in all the places I’ve lived since, I rarely take baths (some think I also rarely take showers too). As kids, taking just baths, it never seemed like we were ever totally rinsed off enough, especially when we washed our hair as part of our bath. On particular “school nights” and every Sunday night when we all took baths, we would always run out of hot water, even though Tim and I always took baths together when we were very young. Our mother would have to boil a big pan of water on the range, and then we would pour it in the lukewarm full tub. In the wintertime, the heat in the water would last about as long as it took to get our hair all full of suds from the shampoo (usually Prell). I suppose the feeling of never feeling totally rinsed off in at least this instance was that we always used way too much of the green Prell and had enough suds and bubbles in our hair to supply Lawrence Welk with a whole program. Of course, as kids, we always liked all the bubbles we could get, and we discovered if we held a bar of soap under water where the full (usually lukewarm at best) blast of the faucet hit the water, that we could produce tons of suds! This of course, resulted in the 2^nd reason why we never felt totally rinsed off after a bath. One time for Christmas we got a box of “bubble bath”, this was way before Mr. Bubble made its appearance. Being typical farm kids, Tim and I figured that if a lot was good, then more was better. We figured we would have the “mother of all bubble baths”, so we dumped the whole box into the churning lukewarm water! Boy, do I recall that! You talk about a “bubble bath”! Well, we surely did have one. I have never seen so many bubbles since! Bubbles were overflowing over the side of the tub and all over the floor and running down through the open register that was right over the fuel oil stove in the downstairs kitchen! In the wintertime, that was the only meager heat we had for the bathroom. When the “globs” of bubble-saturated water starting dropping down through the register and hitting the downstairs kitchen stove with a PSSSSSSSSST sound, we heard the usual yells of, “Hey! What are you boys doing up there”!!!!! (Well, we were trying to survive the “Mother of all bubble baths”!!!) I remember how clean (but very slippery) we left the bathroom floor! After that “BUBBLE BATH”, I don’t think I got all the soap residue washed off of me until I took a shower after Phys. Ed. when school started after Christmas vacation! As a postscript, when I built my modular house here on the farm in 1991, I bought and installed an 80-GALLON water heater for just me! I never plan to ever run out of hot water again! Now the only thing I need to do someday to feel even more rinsed off is to someday get a water softener. Hey, it’s only been 12 years; I’ll get around to it “after I retire”. I mean in my time frame of doing things, that’s really moving quickly!!!



	“BUBBLE TROUBLE” “BUBBLE TROUBLE” When we were kids, we didn’t have a shower in our bathroom, just an old bathtub. The only time we ever took a shower was at school after Phys. Ed. Since I’ve had shower facilities in all the places I’ve lived since, I rarely take baths (some think I also rarely take showers too). As kids, taking just baths, it never seemed like we were ever totally rinsed off enough, especially when we washed our hair as part of our bath. On particular “school nights” and every Sunday night when we all took baths, we would always run out of hot water, even though Tim and I always took baths together when we were very young. Our mother would have to boil a big pan of water on the range, and then we would pour it in the lukewarm full tub. In the wintertime, the heat in the water would last about as long as it took to get our hair all full of suds from the shampoo (usually Prell). I suppose the feeling of never feeling totally rinsed off in at least this instance was that we always used way too much of the green Prell and had enough suds and bubbles in our hair to supply Lawrence Welk with a whole program. Of course, as kids, we always liked all the bubbles we could get, and we discovered if we held a bar of soap under water where the full (usually lukewarm at best) blast of the faucet hit the water, that we could produce tons of suds! This of course, resulted in the 2^nd reason why we never felt totally rinsed off after a bath. One time for Christmas we got a box of “bubble bath”, this was way before Mr. Bubble made its appearance. Being typical farm kids, Tim and I figured that if a lot was good, then more was better. We figured we would have the “mother of all bubble baths”, so we dumped the whole box into the churning lukewarm water! Boy, do I recall that! You talk about a “bubble bath”! Well, we surely did have one. I have never seen so many bubbles since! Bubbles were overflowing over the side of the tub and all over the floor and running down through the open register that was right over the fuel oil stove in the downstairs kitchen! In the wintertime, that was the only meager heat we had for the bathroom. When the “globs” of bubble-saturated water starting dropping down through the register and hitting the downstairs kitchen stove with a PSSSSSSSSST sound, we heard the usual yells of, “Hey! What are you boys doing up there”!!!!! (Well, we were trying to survive the “Mother of all bubble baths”!!!) I remember how clean (but very slippery) we left the bathroom floor! After that “BUBBLE BATH”, I don’t think I got all the soap residue washed off of me until I took a shower after Phys. Ed. when school started after Christmas vacation! As a postscript, when I built my modular house here on the farm in 1991, I bought and installed an 80-GALLON water heater for just me! I never plan to ever run out of hot water again! Now the only thing I need to do someday to feel even more rinsed off is to someday get a water softener. Hey, it’s only been 12 years; I’ll get around to it “after I retire”. I mean in my time frame of doing things, that’s really moving quickly!!!