Not Psyched, But Not Quite Psycho: A Cautionary Tale
Hello, dear friends.
So, funny story… our shower exploded recently.
The date? April 21, 2022. The time? 10:00 pm. There I was, minding my own business, finishing the final episode of The Shrink Next Door (sidenote: it’s a pretty solid TV show. Danny decided he hated it about three episodes in because it was a drama and not a comedy, which we weren’t expecting with a show starring Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd. But I digress.)
Danny was showering and getting ready for bed, when I heard this insanely loud crash coming from the bathroom. I immediately threw the cats off of me and raced into the bedroom, only to find that glass shards had flown from the bathroom, under the sliding bathroom door, all the way across the bedroom.
Concerned that our house was falling down, I yelled out to Danny.
“Are you ok?” I shouted, over the sound of crackling tempered glass.
“.............noooooooooo!” He responded, pitifully.
I opened the door to find poor Danny standing there, in the nude, trying to stop the bleeding from a massive cut on his leg. Seriously friends, it was like walking into a scene from the movie Psycho. Except in this version, the shower victim was your favorite neighborhood realtor. And instead of a serial killer and a knife, there was an exploding shower wall.
Apparently, Danny had tried to use his mongoose-like reflexes to catch the wall before it tumbled down to the ground, smashing into the tub and shattering into a million pieces (he failed miserably, by the way).
And honestly – he’s pretty lucky he didn’t slice open more than just his leg (nudge nudge, wink wink), if you know what I mean.
So, after getting Danny’s bloody stump of a leg under control, we spent the next three hours cleaning the rubble of our shattered shower off our bathroom floor. It probably would have been more efficient if we had better protection for our hands than rubber kitchen gloves and a tiny Ikea dustpan, but who could predict that their shower would revolt and attempt to slice off one of their appendages?
As fate would have it, the next day, Danny’s leg was still a bloody mess. And, per usual, he was continuing to resist going to see the doctor. He even commented (and he was completely serious) that he might use gorilla glue to close the wound and glue his skin back together, like a caveman, to stop the bleeding. (Some background on this insanity: Danny hates going to the doctor and will make every excuse under the sun to avoid medical appointments. He has literally never been to an eye doctor. As someone with terrible eyes, this drives me crazy. He could have absolute garbage vision and not even know it. And by his success rate at catching falling walls of glass, I think we all know where his vision stands.)
After finally getting him to agree to see the doctor, our dear Danny did, in fact, end up needing a bunch of stitches (which he begrudgingly accepted). The doctor also prescribed a round of antibiotics, and absolutely refused to take a single one. So, since I’m a loving and supportive wife, I told him “if you develop gangrene and your leg needs to be amputated, don’t come crying to me.” And then I began to make a mental list of all the ways I could pester and harass him into taking his prescription. But that’s a story for another day.
Our builder stopped by the next morning and couldn’t explain what happened. He assured us that everything had been installed correctly, but I’m fairly certain glass shower walls are not supposed to spontaneously fall down.
The builder said the new glass would be ordered right away and should be fixed in the next week or two. Surprise, surprise, it took two months. And our bathtub will forever have chips running along the edge. And the bathroom door still has a giant scratch running through it to remind us of that fateful day.
The builder suggested having them add a stability bar to prevent this from happening again. Which I enthusiastically agreed with…And they have yet to install. So, until that is done, I’m keeping a pair of flip flops in the shower to wear when it inevitably explodes again, Final Destination style. That way, if I survive, I don’t have to wade through piles of broken glass with bare feet. I’m still hoping to get through a shower without having an anxiety attack.
The moral of the story: If you’re considering buying a house with a big, glass enclosed shower, there’s one thing to keep in mind – it’s all fun and games until the glass wall comes crashing down and tries to kill your husband.
Stay safe out there, folks!
-Elissa & Danny Brown
