Maybe This Close Call Will Make Mrs. HM Think Twice About Her Contrariness

Phew! Mrs. Hillbilly Mom had a bit of a fright this morning at 5:15 a.m. She was the only one up at the time. She takes the first shower every morning. And that’s where it happened. In the master bathroom of the Mansion.

You know how, in that movie Silkwood, when Cher brings home that beautician from Thayer’s Funeral Home, Diana Scarwid, and, Diana says she always knows when somebody worked for Kerr-McGee, the plant that Meryl Streep is trying to get investigated for lax radiation safety procedures? Because, as she says, “They always look like they died BEFORE they died.” Well…that was almost Mrs. HM this morning.

No, I didn’t almost die. And I was not frightened by anything dead. But I almost took a shower BEFORE I took a shower!

I slid open the shower door and reached in to turn the giant crystal (okay, it’s clear plastic, but it LOOKS like crystal) knob to start the water. And all at once, a shower of cold water droplets rained down upon my noggin, wetting my lovely bed-headed lady mullet with a spray that cascaded from above, where there was no shower head.

If you’re not a science teacher, you may never have heard of the angle of incidence equaling the angle of reflection. It’s true. It works for light waves bouncing off of mirrors, and for Putt Putt Golf balls bouncing off that parabolic curve on the last hole so you can win a free game. And apparently, it works for well water sprayed out of a shower head bouncing off the top of a Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner.

Yeah. I had no idea what was going on. It was like I was trapped in a hole in some freakish woman-killer’s basement, and he had told me to rub the lotion on my skin, but I was feeling contrary, like, “No freakish woman-killer is going to tell ME what to do!” and I had not done so. Which meant that I got the hose again.

Maybe Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is a fan of too many old movies. It was just a little cold water splashing out of the shower over the top of the sliding door. Only this, and nothing more.