I’ve been sitting here in my big, manly, black leather poppa chair in my living room, watching ESPN. They just showed a video of New York Mets pitcher Matt Harvey on one of the rare times he got shelled in the third inning, and Terry Collins, the manager came out, took the ball, and sent him to the showers. Matt’s looking down, and walking sadly off the field. Pitchers and other professional athletes do not like to be sent to the showers. I have always loved taking a shower. I was only an amateur athlete. I was a pretty successful competitive swimmer in school…I did the butterfly. That’s a particularly painful kind of swimming stroke that requires you to pull your arms out of their sockets and up over your head over and over again for at least 100 yards. Although the whole competition was done in the water, I loved taking a shower after it. For one thing it kept the pool’s chlorine from eating me alive. And for another thing, I just loved taking a shower. I take a shower every night. I love taking showers. In fact I am hoping to take my favorite kind of shower tonight. I’ll tell you about that later. I always had to take a bath when I was a little kid. I wasn’t allowed to take a shower till I was around 7. It was kind of a rite of pre-puberty passage. I guess that’s why taking a shower…even now makes me feel like a grown up. I realize that’s an immature reaction, but I am an immature grown up, so it’s ok. Big Louie has an important warning about growing up in my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot. (www.dicksummer.com) He says, “You can’t help growing up, but you do NOT have to mature, so don’t. Maturity is a trap.” If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you realize that I have carefully followed Louie’s warning all my life.
I love taking a shower. The hot water and the suds kind of washes away a lot more than just the sweat and grime. It gives you time to quiet down and listen to what your body is telling you. Usually when I listen to my body, it’s just laughing and pointing at various parts that have slipped or are simply hanging down. But last night, it made a point that really shocked me while it was laughing and pointing. It said, “Do you realize you’ve never washed your back?” And I suddenly realized that my body was right. I’ve never washed my back. I’ve scratched my back a lot, but I’ve never washed it. Never. Maybe that’s why I scratch it so often. Now, I am not an un-sanitary slob. I may be a slob, but if so I am one of your more sanitary slobs. So I got curious as to what effect that sanitary neglect might have had last night. So I grabbed one of my Lady Wonder Wench’s hand mirrors, and for the first time ever, I looked at my back. Incredible. The barber always holds up a mirror to show me the back of my head, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen all the way down my back. To be honest, I think it looks better than my front. If I could turn my head and my feet 180 degrees, I think I’d walk backward from now on.
Dick’s Details, a bunch of totally un-important stuff for you to stuff in one ear, so you can squeeze the important stuff that’s making your back itch out the other ear, and your body can laugh and point for a few minutes. The Statue of Liberty’s fingernails weigh 100 pounds each. What a back scratch she could give. Bagpipes were invented in Iran. How appropriate. The first time I heard a bagpipe, I ran. In the 13th Century, Europeans baptized their children with beer. As soon as the kid was born, they hopped right to it. If the answer is “His girlfriend lives 500 miles away,” what is the question? Washington D.C. has more psychiatrists per capita than any other city in the country. Why not? That’s where Congress is. The Pentagon in Washington uses 666 rolls of toilet paper a day. I will leave any comment on that to your imagination. If the answer is “His girlfriend lives 500 miles away” the question is “Why does he have such a tremendous sex drive.? With material like that it’s no wonder his girlfriend moved 500 miles away. Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.
Don’t you just love taking a shower. There’s a verbal shower in the current podcast at www.dicksummer.com/podcast . I bet you can even remember how it feels when you get the water temperature just right, and you step into the shower, and you can feel that warm water touch your hair, and warm your face and your neck, sinking in all warm and comfortable down your back and down your chest and your belly…getting your muscles all loose and comfortable… I’ll bet just thinking about it, you can feel the warm water slowly sliding down your backside and your hips, making those thigh muscles relax…sliding down the calves of your legs, down around your ankles, and your feet…go ahead…just stand there for a few minutes, and enjoy feeling all comfortable and relaxed. I love taking a shower. I bet you do too.
There’s a story called Nicholas And The Shower Lady in the current podcast (www.dicksummer.com/podcast ) Nicholas was a Russian computer programmer, who was invited to enjoy a shower for two with The Shower Lady. She recorded his voice with her little MP3 player just before he left for his apartment one night. For a long time after he disappeared for good, she listened to his recorded voice while she was taking her shower every night. She especially loved the sound when he said, do svidaniya. Do svidania is Russian. It means goodbye. But there’s a subtlety about the Russian word do svidania. It doesn’t just mean goodbye. It means goodbye I hope we’ll see each other again. And she says she does sometimes see his face in the shower steam, as she hears his voice say do svidania, and somenights she feels his voice kissing her…and holding her…and loving her.
The story is called “Nicholas And The Shower Lady.” It’s from my Night Connections 2 spoken word CD. If you like it, you can just keep this podcast, or if you want a fresh copy, just go back to dick summer.com, and check out the Night Connections 2 icon on the home page.
Nicholas was a lucky guy. A shower duet with a lady is one of life’s great pleasures. A girl once told me she wouldn’t take a shower with me if I were the last person on earth. I pointed out to her that if I were the last person on earth she wouldn’t be here to take a shower with me. She was not amused. I wanted to get her relaxed by making her laugh thinking maybe she’d change her mind. She was a teacher, so I said, “I kinda thought I was the teacher’s pet since you don’t have a dog.” She just looked at me in a really nasty silent tone of voice. To break the awful quiet, I said something that…looking back on it…should be the first chapter of the world’s shortest book which is called…”What Men Know About Women.” She was kind of a Dolly Parton look alike, so I said, “I bet you have to be very careful, because if you’re not careful, every time you turn around, you’ll wipe everything off the blackboard.” If she were a baseball manager, and I were a pitcher, right then it would have been time for me to hand her the ball, because it was quite clear that she was sending me to the shower, and she wasn’t coming with me.
I am hoping to have better luck with My Lady Wonder Wench tonight. I especially love taking showers when she is a participant. That has happened on several occasions in the past, but not often recently. Like many women my Lady has a high regard for sanitation. So I think I’ll tell her that after all these years I really need to have my back washed. Wish me luck.
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