Shower Dance

  Commercial fishing has a certain poetic appeal to the outside world. The real story is much different to those brave enough to attempt to make a living chasing ocean fish.
  I lived on a small boat for seven years. The house living area would be about the size of a camper on a Volkswagen. Always damp, even with the stove going, I learned to stack my clothes and sleeping equipment out of the constant leaks developed by a wooden boat pounding daily on the North Pacific Ocean. Romantic... hardly! To bathe one had to heat a kettle of water on the diesel stove and pour into a pan to take a sponge bath, crude at best.
  The cold storage provides free showers and pay laundry facilities... and therein lies the problem. The two do not mix! The washing machines are next to the shower stalls and compete for the same water.
  I was fishing off Cross Sound and doing my fish selling, fuel, and grocery restocking in a small board walk town of Pelican.
  Here is on of the stories of the difficulty of just taking a shower after a full week of hard work and sweating.
  I made a turn-around in Pelican the other evening. It was a routine event in the line of delivering the fish and taking on new ice. Also routine was the practice of my dance steps.  I know you're wondering what dance steps a crusty ol' fisherman could possibly have... Let me tell you.  I call it the one legged, screeching, eyes shut shower dance. 
  It starts like this; After a week on the ocean I am very ready for a real shower. I love to stand and feel that first blast of warm water course down my  body. Invariable a big, "aaahhhh" escapes my lips, of its own account. It is hard to explain the feeling of a hot shower after a full week of sweat. Sometimes I would find myself laughing out loud at the great pleasure of hot water.
   I stand there and smile real big for a while.  As I start getting used to the water I begin cranking up the heat to steam the weariness out of my bones.  Shampoo in the hair and a bar of great smelling soap on one leg hiked up in the air.
  It is very difficult to stand on one leg after being on the sea for a week and doubly so with one's eyes closed. The motion of the ocean continues while on land.
  Then it happens. Some one outside must know all the pleasure I am feeling right now and decides to put a damper on it. They put a load of laundry in the washing machine.
  I have tried for years to tune my ears in to the sound of a coin feeder being pushed forward and released to spring back starting a load of wash. I still miss most of them.  
  Here I stand wobbling around in a small shower room, one leg in the air, shampoo running over my closed eyelids when suddenly all the hot water is sucked into a washing machine! 
  "oooohhhh! sshheeessshh! ugggghhh!" I stammer as I dance on one leg trying to get out of the stream of glacier fed cold water.  I reach back and crank the hot water up to a tolerable luke warm to rinse the soap suds off me.
  I stand there trembling watching the goose bumps slowly recede to the size of oranges. 
  Alright, now I've been warned. I know there is a washer in operation.
  The tricky part of the shower is now underway.  I must time the water temperature fluctuation in order to finish this fine shower. 
  Even with that knowledge,I get lulled into a false sense of security. I forget.  
  I shampoo the hair again and begin soaping the other leg. 
  POW!
  "Iiiieeee!" I shriek as the now warm water turns scalding hot.
  I dance around in the shower room banging off walls in an attempt at keeping some hide left un-scalded.  The washing machine just went to cold water rinse. 
  "ouch, ouch, oweeee!" I mutter as I start adjusting the water to a once again luke warm temperature. 
  I give up on trying for another shampoo. I'll just stand here and enjoy the water.  The machine now goes into the spin cycle blasting little bursts of hot or cold water. 
  I dance around the shower until at last I am weary from all the dancing and water adjusting. 
  Back in my clothes I open the door and step out of the shower room to see a guy sitting on a washing machine reading a book. He looks up and smiles. "Wonderful shower, huh? he asks. 
  "Bah!" I reply as I walk back to the boat.  "What's wrong with that grumpy guy?" I hear him mutter as I walk out of earshot.