A Shower of Ideas

Sorry that it's taken me this long to post another update. My computer was on the fritz for a bit, to the point where I could quickly check my e-mail and respond to anything urgent before my computer froze up for good. All I had wanted to do last Friday evening after a long week on the road was snuggle up and watch Grey's Anatomy, which unfortunately my computer would not permit. Luckily, my parents were here last weekend and my dad got me fixed up.

The job is going well for the most part. The drawback to working for a nun is that I must be on my best behavior at all times. We share an office, so I must literally be good all day. The way I see it, being on my best behavior at work all day has 2 potential outcomes: 1) I get used to always being cheerful, helpful and holy and that becomes my permanent disposition; or 2) I get sick of being on my best behavior all day and switch to being a bit of a pessimist/jerk the rest of the time. So far, the trend has been in favor of option #2. Anyone reading this knows (hopefully) that I'm not really a jerk, but that I am independent and sometimes opinionated, and I have a hard time being entirely subservient to my boss. I'm using this time as a lesson in the virtues of patience and humility.

One thing that can be said is that, for better or worse, there is never a dull moment at work. Last week on the way home from a service fair in San Marcos, we stopped at Cabela's. Not really the place that you expect to see a nun in a habit. No, Sister is not preparing for a hunting or camping trip, but we are getting ready to host a group of volunteers at the end of the year. Our new place has great office space and some classrooms that we can use for our training sessions, but we are severely lacking in living space for our volunteers when they stay with us for almost 3 weeks. Although we can easily convert a classroom into sleeping quarters, the most significant problem is that there are currently no showers in the building. Sister had the idea that we could transform the handicap stall in the girls' bathroom into a shower (not by actually remodeling, but by temporarily hooking up a portable shower or hose). Portable showers are sometimes used during camping, hence we went to Cabela's to check them out.

The idea raised several red flags in my mind. First of all, I asked if there was a drain in the bathroom. I envisioned the flood that would occur as volunteers unleash a shower of water directly onto the bathroom floor. She assured me that there is indeed a drain, although as it turns out the drain is not positioned in our potential shower area. I still foresee a bit of a flood, not to mention a lot of really wet toilet paper. Secondly, portable showers need to be connected to a water source, and stringing a hose across the bathroom doesn't seem like such a fantastic idea to me. For one thing, a standard hose for a portable shower seems to be 4' long--not long enough to stretch from the faucet all the way to the stall. And we still need some way to fasten it or else the volunteer will be forced to hold it the entire time. If dropped, such a short hose is likely to fall on the outside of the stall (toward the sink where it's connected), forcing a naked volunteer to retrieve it. Strike two. Because we will have at least 4 volunteers, Sister came up with the idea that we could connect showers to both sinks. One volunteer could shower in the stall and another outside the stall...in the MIDDLE OF THE BATHROOM! Oh, but wearing a bathing suit. Personally, I don't actually bathe in my bathing suit. Somehow I feel like crucial areas may be neglected with that approach.

2 other ideas have been thrown around regarding potential locations for showers (the girls' bathroom actually being my preferred location of the 3). The 2nd location is the boys' bathroom (for the girls to shower). The idea was that again, one volunteer could shower in the stall, but the boys' bathroom has the advantage of having more open floor space for another volunteer to shower outside of the stall and next to the urinals!!! GROSS! I just cannot imagine feeling clean when the same water that is supposed to be making me clean is ricocheting off of a urinal and back onto me. However, I still think that option 2 may be better than the latest idea. One day this week we were coming back from lunch, and Sister excitedly asked me to follow her because she had something to show me downstairs. She opens a door that proves to be the janitor's closet. In her mind this space is ideal because it already has a floor drain and some raised sides so that water does not escape when the janitor washes out his mop. The entire closet is no larger than an ordinary shower stall, but reeks of chemicals. In this scenario, the volunteer would be trapped inside the very small but steamy and potent closet, which opens directly into the main hallway. I would imagine that a bathing suit would be necessary here as well, because I'm not sure who would be comfortable showering naked in a janitor's closet that opens up in to the main hallway of the CCD building. Perhaps it wouldn't the that big of a deal, because I'm not sure that there is even a light in the closet.

As it turns out, we did not purchase anything from Cabela's. Operation Shower is still in the works. I'll provide an update when a decision has been made.