BANISHMENT 5: Thinking I will save the world through showers

I pretty much have the same routine every morning. This routine involves a noise going off somewhere in my covers. A buzzing, beeping situation that feels like a plane is landing. A complete impossibility, obviously, and yet something that seems incredibly disarming at 5:30 in the morning.

Inevitably – and I’ll admit, some mornings this takes me longer than others – I realize it’s not likely that United Airlines is parking Flight 76 underneath my duvet, but rather it’s probably my Blackberry telling me it’s time to wake up and do things like lather my hair in overly priced shampoo and edit yet another book about our 44th president. As such, upon finding said telephone device, I do what any intelligent American would do: I try to begin my day with procrastination.

In most lives this is where the snooze button would rise from the ashes to become the lazy man’s best friend, the beep-quieting Labrador retriever. But Blackberrys don’t come with a terrible amount of options. They are for business people who are supposed to meet deadlines or get their heads chopped off. They don’t want people to snooze. They don’t want visions of sugarplums to dance in people’s heads. Mother Technology only gives you five minutes before exploding into another temper tantrum that implores sleeping professionals to give up beauty for being a broker. And it’s always at this point, upon the second shrill plane landing, that I spend ten minutes cursing my Blackberry and wishing I did something simpler for a profession. Like play Yahtzee. Or alphabetize episodes of Oprah. Anything that would let me demolish this communication device in a bonfire. But since I don’t, I put on my slippers.

The thing about waking up, for me at least, is there is at least a good fifteen minutes where it’s probably a pretty healthy idea for me not to interact with humans. This period usually stems from the point of discovering the “plane” until I have downed my first dark roast. Until then, I am a mute. A horribly irritable, temperamental mute who wants to write a very long, angry letter to Blackberry about their snooze button.  The only thing that can fix me is my happy place: the coffee pot.

Once upon a time, the coffee pot used to be a very sad part of my day. I had one of those miniature situations people pick up right before college. The training bra of coffee makers that only brewed one and a half cups of horrendous coffee you wouldn’t even offer to your Mother in Law. It was puny. And filterless. But it was free, so I chugged on.

Recently, however, in trying to become less of a fraternity house and more like an issue of West Elm, I upgraded. I got a large, silver pot that makes happy beeps and synchronized filtering sounds. I imagine the grounds swimming inside doing coordinated back flips and swan dives. They are very ecstatic in their new home and work furiously to brew me back to happiness while I trundle forward with the last leg of my Morning Marathon Routine: the shower.

The shower is pretty much the most exquisite affair water will ever have with the human body (that is unless you’re a female you and you give birth in one of those pool situations, in which case you are required by parental law to enjoy giving birth in a baby pool more). It’s a built-in-waterfall in the bathroom. A glorious explosion of cleanliness. If someone ever came up to you and said, “Listen, if you want, I’ll build a waterfall in your house. One where you can control the temperature and have enough room to break dance.” Wouldn’t you say yes? Wouldn’t you squeal like that little girl who just found Fido under her tree with a red bow? Yes you would. Don’t even pretend otherwise. You might even pee your pants.

And this is where the last problem arises. The shower is too ridiculously fantastic. If I could, I might stay in there all day long. I might install an Easy Bake Oven and watch Netflix by projecting movies on the tile. I might use loofas as pillows and strongly consider having Steve Jobs create an iWater. But one can’t stay in a shower all day. If that happened, I would surely wrinkle out to the size of a beached whale and Al Gore would write me a nasty letter telling me I’m responsible for global warming. I have to cap my water pleasure at fifteen minutes for fear of emptying the Atlantic Ocean into my break-danceable shower. That, and at some point I really must start working. After all, synchronized coffee beans, hell-bent Blackberrys, and waterfall showers don’t pay for themselves.