Rub-a-dub-dub, a man in a tub

One of history’s age-old questions is, “What do you like best? The shower or the bathtub?”

Those who preferred immersion had a clear advantage through the Roman years, since there were public baths all over the realm on the theory that the empire that skinny-dips together, stays together.

Those who preferred a shower-style rinse had to make do with having a servant pour a bucket over their heads. That could be a risky proposition, depending on the temperature of the water, the size of the bucket, and how much resentment the servant was harboring toward the master. Plenty of masters got a gallon or two directly down the ear-hole.

Then the great inventor Peerless Kohler invented the showerhead in 1477 A.D. (the influential Shower-Massage with Pulsating Action). The shower-tub debate has been at full flow ever since.

The arguments for either side are fairly straightforward:

Shower: Quick, invigorating, water-conserving and you don’t have to sit there and stew in your own dirt.

Tub: Relaxing, leisurely, quiet and you can play with your rubber ducky.

I have been a longtime shower man until about three weeks ago when suddenly I underwent a miraculous conversion, a tidal shift, a baptism you might say …

I’ll explain later. First, let me detail the reasons that I, like most Americans, had come to prefer the shower.

The advantages are clear from the first step in the process. You can turn the shower on and step right in. You don’t have to sit there, nekkid and shivering, and wait for a tub to fill, which makes you late for work, by which I mean, even later than usual.

Then, once you’re in the shower, the dirt begins to sluice off of your body immediately. Add a little soap, maybe a little scrub with a “loofah” or industrial No. 60 sandpaper, and all of that grit and grime swirls down the drain, gone forever.

Then you can build yourself a big shampoo afro and then rinse it all off just by ducking your head into the cleansing stream.

Finally, and this is very important for those of us who are physical fitness fanatics, you can finish off your shower by doing some stretching. With all of that hot water cascading over your body, your muscles will loosen up to the point where you can bend down to touch your toes and make it all the way mid-kneecap.

None of the above can be done in the tub. All you can really do is lie there in your own, how can I put this, bouillon. The water you are trying to rinse your hair with contains (1) The dirt from your garden, (2) Three layers of sun block you applied since yesterday, (3) Various flakes of dandruff from you and/or your dog and (4) Two bandages, floating in the vicinity of your ear.

Meanwhile, the only stretching you’ll do is when you try to bend your neck far enough forward (or backward) in a hopeless attempt to rinse the Prell off of your head.

So that’s why I have always been a shower man … until three weeks ago.

We got ourselves one of those big, deep jetted tubs. Oh, mercy. Suddenly, I find I don’t care about the shower’s competitive advantages. I don’t care how long it takes to fill this tub. I have discovered what those Romans knew long ago: A warm soak is good for the soul.

I just recline there in this cocoon of luxury and let all of those jets keep that warm water bubbly, soothing and circulating. My heart rate drops to “hibernating bear.” Even after I have turned off the jets, in preparation for getting out, I just float there motionless for another half-hour. In this beautiful state of utter lethargy, even getting out of the tub seems like too much trouble. Keeping the eyes open seems like too much trouble.

And did I mention that this tub cost only about $600 in a liquidation sale? Everyone should run out and get one. (I should probably mention that you’ll also need to borrow $10,000, in order to remodel your entire bathroom to make it fit. But that’s another column).

So I still take showers in the morning, for time-management purposes. But I have become a tub convert, and I think that I’ll be enjoying it even more in upcoming months.

For one thing, cold weather will arrive. For another, I plan to go and buy me a rubber ducky.