Uncomfortably numb.

Before Brad and I moved in together, we went through a sort of trial cohabitation period. It worked like this: I would spend Monday - Saturday at his place, then go back to my apartment on Sunday. I would get clean underwear, remind my roommates that I was still alive, spend one blissful night alone in a bed that did not contain a snoring, farting man, and then start the entire process over again on Monday morning. (It was a lot more fun than it sounds, I swear.)

Suddenly sharing space with a dude, especially his space, can be hair-raising. I mean, consider the number of Single Girl's Urban Legends about relationships ruined by the too-early introduction of a spare toothbrush in the man's bathroom; early pseudo-cohabitation is a minefield of potential faux pas. But while it took me a few weeks to stop carrying my contact lens solution in my purse, or to start keeping a change or two of clothes in one of his drawers, it was only two days -- the time it took me to have a single experience in Brad's shower -- before I came back armed with a CVS bag full of items which I installed in the apartment bathroom.

This, readers, was a BAD SHOWER. It was so bad that, rather than trying to make do with it in its current state, I was willing to introduce potentially relationship-ending items into it. We are talking about Serious Shower Badness.

The shower actually looked quite usable at first glance, a fact which made its problems all the more insidious. It was decked out with a beautiful array of shampoos, conditioners, body washes, soaps, and other skin-care-related items in various bottles -- all of which is highly unusual in the showers of Men Who Live Alone. Over the years I've accumulated a certain amount of experience in said showers, and they are generally stocked with two items: a) a bottle of shampoo, and b) a bar of soap. If you are lucky, the soap will be relatively clean and not covered with a raised-relief fresco made of stray pubic hairs. (Note: I was rarely lucky.)

The problem was that most of the lovely bottles were just that: lovely, utterly useless bottles.

They were either completely empty, or cemented firmly to the tub by a thick seal of mildew, or contained nothing but an inch of cold, scummy goo which would slide from their mouths like a viscous slug and immediately coat your fingers with slime. My first experience showering at Brad's was like a reimagining of the final scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in a shower setting: me, facing down twenty vessels of which only one actually contained shampoo, intermittently shrieking when one of the bottle-slugs landed on my foot. The only thing missing was a ghostly Knight Templar sitting on the toilet nearby and muttering, "She chose... poorly" every time I picked wrong.


So I am proud to say that when we did finally move in together, rather than have our new shower take on the role of Place Where Bottles Go To Die, I took over all soap and shampoo-buying responsibilities.

I am embarrassed to admit that last week, I got lazy. We suddenly had three bottles of soap in the shower, all empty, and no replacement available.

And I am sorry to say that when, at the grocery store that morning, Brad said, "I'm going to buy some soap," I did not run shrieking down the aisle to make sure that said soap was mutually acceptable.

Instead, I just assumed that the soap would be fine. Its label proclaimed its scent to be subtly refreshing ("It smells like peppermint," said Brad, and then, in a conspiratorial whisper, "it makes my balls tingle!") and so I got in the shower today, happily loaded a loofah with the minty-smelling suds, and proceeded to do my usual scrub-down. I was even enjoying the fresh scent and the cool, prickly feeling on my arms. And everything would have probably been great, except for certain, um, inherent differences between Brad and myself which became clearly evident when I went to wash my own nether-regions and discovered that the female equivalent of "It makes my balls tingle!" is an experience way beyond what one would call "subtly refreshing".

And if this isn't making any sense, let me put it this way:
I got out of the shower 30 minutes ago and I still cannot feel my vagina.