For the love of a good shower
I know…. I’ve been complaining a lot about my apartment lately. Well, sorry, but I have something else to complain about: my shower!I got back from being away for three weeks and hated the thought of my lousy shower. Boy was that an understatement. It was even worse on return than I expected. Turns out not only did I have the usual low water pressure. I didn’t have hot water either!!
The really bad thing was, I didn’t realize this until I got in the shower the first morning. See, I got home on Monday evening and went right out to have dinner and drinks with a few friends. I never really got a chance to test the water that evening.
So Tuesday morning, I hopped into my shower…. And WOW! What another rude awakening to my return to China! No matter how I tried I couldn’t get hot water. Luckily, it was warm enough for me to survive a quick cold shower on this day. But to hell with shaving! I went to a bad beard look.
Calling the apartment maintenance to come and check my water situation was better than expected. The “engineer”, as they like to call them, promptly came right over when I got back to my apartment on Tuesday evening. Before I knew it, he pulled open a compartment on the bottom of the gas tank that sits above the toilet and plucked two “D” batteries from within. I’m sure he was asking if I had any others. Of course, I didn’t. Hell, I would have never guessed I needed batteries to make my water hot.
Off he ran and soon he returned with two new batteries to fix my situation. That gas tank is sure working better than before. It really gets hot! But notice that I didn’t say I can make it warm. That is still an impossibility. I’ve tried everything I can imagine. But all I get is a minute of warm water before it shuts the gas off and turns frigid cold. So there I go turning off the cold to get the hot to fire up again, only to be scalded. ………. And then the cycle renews again.
At least I get a good dance every time I take a shower! I’m definitely back in China!
posted by A Bryson (formerly) in China @ 5:03 PM
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