Shower Beer and Other Lies

I used to spend a lot of time and energy pretending to like things I didn't. For instance, beer and chicken wings. I don't really like either of those things (yeah yeah, I'm a monster, whatever), but damned if I didn't consume great quantities of them with my pals/coworkers/boyfriends back in the day. I occasionally enjoy a beer or ten these days, but once I discovered wine the gig was basically up.

I remember my classmates in college talking about drinking beer in the shower, and how it was so amazing. Hot shower + cold beer = apparently life-changing awesomeness. I pondered this arithmetic at home that night. Salt and nuts aren't all that amazing on their own, but when you put them together they're unstoppable - or maybe I'm unstoppable, in that I can't stop eating them - so maybe there was something to this beer-shower business? I looked in my fridge. No beer, but there was a butterscotch pudding cup. Maybe it's just something cold and enjoyable contrasted with the hot and enjoyable shower that made it so good? I decided to give it a shot.

Nope. It was either watery pudding in the shower, or regular pudding while getting cold outside the spray. Fair enough, rookie mistake: you clearly need something enjoyable that you don't have to eat with a spoon.

Yogurt tube? Carrot sticks? No and no. So it has to be something you drink, right?

After a couple more rookie mistakes (cup of coffee and glass of wine, respectively), it was clear that you need a beverage that water can't get into and wreck. Then after a couple more semi-pro** mistakes (**by this point I could no longer pretend at being a rookie) (tin of Coke Zero, bottle of Perrier), it became clear that I just don't like eating or drinking things in the shower.

And honestly, why would I? Showers are good enough on their own. Showers don't need butterscotch pudding or Perrier, or even beer - especially beer! - to be amazing. Why would showers add useless fluff, or pretend to be something they're not?

Allow me to clarify a point: I finished college in 2003. I was disappointed by a bottle of Perrier in the shower stall of a crappy motel room in Bow Island about six weeks ago. This has been a very protracted experimental process, to arrive at a conclusion that should have been immediately self-evident. Here is what I should have said to my college classmates all those years ago: Beer in the shower? Sounds pretty medium. I'm just gonna stick to my usual routine of conditioning masks and masturbating and never think about you guys and your beer-showers ever again.

Be yourself, friends. You're good enough just the way you are.