I included “attempted” in this title for reasons that may be obvious to some, and not to others. Primarily, it will be obvious to anyone who has attempted to have a romantic soak with a partner in a less-than-adequately-sized tub. Here’s how you want it to go: you imagine lighting some candles, putting on some romantic music, and slipping luxuriously into the tub with your partner. You imagine feeling like a queen (or a king, let’s not discriminate here), having space to lounge, and let your hair flow glamorously in the water as your partner washes your back with a sweet-smelling loofah.
You’re not thinking about the Kitchener plumbing services you need to have done; you’re taking full advantage of the tub. That sounds nice, doesn’t it? Sounds really romantic. Sounds like the beginning of a steamy evening. And hey, if it works like that for you, that’s great. I mean it. That’s fantastic. Congratulations. Trouble is, a lot of the time, it goes nothing like that. A lot of the time, you don’t have candles on hand. Fine. No big deal. That’s something you can definitely live without. You may not have suitable music. Okay. Silence can be golden. You may not have fancy soaps. This is also not the end of the world. Any soap will do (and frankly if you don’t have any soap at all in your house, you have bigger things to worry about than this bathing session). All of these things, we can overcome.
The whole point of the thing is, after all, to have a fun, relaxing, romantic time with your partner. So really the only thing that is absolutely necessary to achieving this particular task is that you have two people in a bathtub. Therein lies the potential issue. Because in most reasonably-sized homes (and even in some bigger homes, frankly), the bathtub is made for one person. It’s made so that a single human being can stretch out comfortably, and have a little wiggle room to clean oneself.
When you try to stick another person in there, well, those of you who may have tried this know how it goes. Granted, there are a few ways you can probably comfortably fit two people in those tubs. But realistically, it doesn’t usually go as planned. Here’s how it actually goes: you light a single tealight that you found in a sock drawer, which doesn’t give off much light, and when you turn off the lights to set the mood, it’s actually dark as hell and you whack your shin on the side of the bathtub when you’re undressing.
You go to put on some romantic music, but the wifi in the bathroom is garbage and you can’t get a good signal and you have nothing good on your iTunes, so you settle for an old James Blunt album. Whatever. You put it on there years ago, and it’s the best you’ve got. So, Mr. Blunt pouring out of your iPhone speakers, you carefully slide into the tub, in almost total darkness.
Then your partner tries to get in. And there’s no way you can sit without knee being in your back. Or you absolutely cannot position yourselves properly so that your feet aren’t in her face. So there you sit, both secretly hating it, and your hair is wet, but you’re sitting up out of the water, so you feel like a cold, drowned rat.
You manage to convince yourselves that it’s worth it for about five songs, but eventually start to cramp up, and agree to get out of the tub. Once you’re both dry, you get into pjs, grab some beer, throw on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and fall asleep on the couch, wondering why on earth you decided to get wet in the first place.
(Here, just in case you’re one of those people who can’t fint romantic music on your phone. Hope your wifi works. Good luck.)