At last a decent shower... I hope...

Okay... I tried two nights in a row to do the "baggie full of vinegar around the shower head" thing to unclog the doggone shower head. It was only halfway spraying, and it was taking me twice as long to get the soap off me and out of my hair. Forget the fact that showering stopped being enjoyable years ago in this house.

Tonight I took the showerhead off and tried boiling it in vinegar to get the gunk out. Did I mention that I have hard water? (No water softeners for me, thanks. I hate slimy showers even worse.) The only stuff that came off or out looked to be the remains of old plumber's putty.

Well, that aggravated me and I decided to put the stupid cheap thing back up with my trusty new insulated channel-lock pliers (and I did get a decent pair, according to Dad) that I bought last night. I thought I'd just go tomorrow and buy a new one to replace it and save myself the frustration. Wrong. Not only could I not get the stupid old showerhead back on completely, but it leaked when I was finished and water wouldn't completely come through the showerhead anymore. There was no way I would be able to shower under it this way. By the way, this shower head was so cheap that it was a one piece plastic thing. There wasn't even any way I could take it apart and poke a wire through the holes to get the stuff out of it. In fact, there weren't any holes that I could find. It wasn't made that way.

Of course, I didn't install this showerhead. It was here when I bought the house. Obviously, whoever bought it was more interested in saving a few dollars than getting something that functioned well.

I was so angry I nearly cried. So I did the only thing I could think of to do at 10 pm on a school night. I called my Dad and begged him for help. When he came over a little while later, his brief assessment was that I probably should replace the showerhead. I think it surprised him that I was thrilled by that answer.

We headed straight to the evil Wal-Mart and I picked out a nice Peerless one for $30 that has a handheld unit with it, and 7 massage settings. I figured it would come in handy for washing the tub, giving Terra a bath... lots of things like that. He pointed out the replacement showerheads that looked an awful lot like the one I was replacing... THEY WERE $1.96 EACH! I know somebody out there is rejoicing over a showerhead that cheap, but when you can't get water to come through it, that's $1.96 too much for them.

I even had Teflon tape in my toolbox already, because of the dumb ex-boyfriend who insisted I buy it so that he could fix my leaky kitchen sink... and he never did. LOL I can't tell that it's leaky... I think there might be a slight condensation problem, but I wouldn't call it a leak. I'll bet that my putting in that shelving unit under the sink probably cut down on the condensation hanging around too.

Anyway, Dad took about 10 minutes to install the new shower for me, and when he finished, the showerhead was literally 8 feet over the shower floor. (I'm only 5'5"!) For a split second I pictured myself trying to reach the controls on tiptoes. Then I realized that he had left the whole thing tilted upward for a laugh. Ha ha, always laughing at the short woman! LOL

It's actually in a better position for showering than the old one was. At least now I won't have to scoot back against the wall to get under the spray. And it's got some rubber jets that you can supposedly flex to break loose mineral deposits. I hope that works.

I am soooo tempted to take a shower before I go to bed, just to try it out, of course. :) But for some strange reason, I'm feeling kind of shy about doing that. Strange thought, isn't it? Maybe it'll make this pain in my kidneys go away for a little while.