At least by the end of this story my hair is soft and shiny

O privacy, how much I miss thee.

I am in a relatively small berthing (sleeping area).  Our section of berthing has “only” 24 racks - broken up into 4 sections and divided into stacks of 3 racks.  Getting up is fun - most of us get up at generally the same time so there are a lot of people moving in a very small space, all of whom are disoriented from the sleep and haven’t had their morning coffee yet.  And female.

Besides our berthing, we share with two other departments and they have similar compartments with about the same number of racks.  The space is one long space broken up with “knee knockers” (kind of elevated doorways) and curtains dividing each department’s berthing from the next.  In the middle one is the one bathroom.  The one bathroom with the 6 toilets and the 5 sinks (only 3 of which function) and the 4 showers.

So let’s do the math: about 75 people, and 4 showers.  Not only those 75 people but the other thousand-something people waking up about the same thing.   All things considered, things run surprisingly smoothly most mornings; outside of the occasional line for the shower or the knocked head trying to comb my hair.  This morning, however, I was not so lucky. 

I try to be conservative with my water, so I turn the water pressure down and I turn off the water when I’m washing.  This morning I put on a thick coat of conditioner on my hair and lathered up; when I turned the water back on to rinse, the pressure was very low, so I tried fiddling with the shower head.  As I fiddled, it only seemed to make it worse.  My panic increased as the water decreased, until it was coming out in little drips, and then stopped altogether.  I stood there for a few minutes, waiting, turning the water off and then on, off and then on, as the conditioner slimed down my back.

Finally I got out and checked the water in the sinks but alas, they too were dry.  Resigned, I toweled off the soap and started combing my hair with a fine toothed comb to try and comb out some of the conditioner.  And just as I opened the door to go out of the bathroom, the water started up again.

I just know there was some mechanic somewhere cackling to himself as this all played out.

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