The Weird Bath
I break the seal on a twelve pack of bath bombs and arbitrarily pick one out of the ornate, cardboard packaging. They aren’t my Christmas gift, but I know a weird bath isn’t on my girlfriend’s 2021 bucket list. It’s December 31, and I’m about to partake in the last weird bath of the year and go to bed long before the chic hour of midnight.
The inaugural weird bath occurred in a Boston hotel room, probably in 2012. But I can’t exactly remember the year. I was single, unfit, and terribly drunk thrashing around a soaker tub. It was the day after a proper St. Patrick’s Day.
During the trip to Boston, I may have met a couple of The Real Housewives in a bar near Fenway Park, but that’s a memory to unpack in another piece of regurgitated writing.
The details of the inaugural weird bath included my bloated body wriggling around in a tub half-filled with water, which had turned to sullage quickly enough to warrant concern for a sober person. The grey water splashed onto the floor, the toilet, and the mirror of the bathroom as I slid my ass back and forth on the bottom of the tub to make waves in the sordid water. I was pudgy goblin bathing in the caustic aftermath of my whiskey induced choices.
Dripping wet, I tumbled out of the tub to snatch the last half-warm can of Pabst Blue Ribbon from the bathroom sink only to return to the grey hate water in the tub.
I wasn’t sure the sink beer was of equal or greater quality than the collective contents of the bath tub. I refused to take another gulp of half-warm beer and poured the contents of the can in with the bath water. To seal my poor behaviour I let out a muted grunt and unleashed an Arc de Triomphe of yellow urine from the tip of my penis while the empty beer can floated unceremoniously against the wall of the tub.
An unreasonable amount of time passed before I decided to remove myself from the soaker tub.
I end 2021 wrinkled and relatively sober compared to the first weird bath I endured in Boston. The bath bomb is fizzing and dissolving around me. Instead of grey water and beer, I smell like essential oils and flowers. My dog walks up to the edge of the tub, licks my elbow, and then vacates the washroom — he has better plans for New Years Eve. I let out a sigh followed by a raucous cough.
Around Christmastime, I took a rapid test. It showed a negative result. A couples days after that I took a PCR test. And those results also came back negative. I didn’t have Covid-19, but I had a worsening cough and difficulty, at times, breathing. A walk-in clinic doctor diagnosed me with Asthma Bronchitis or Bronchitis Asthma — I don’t remember how he phrased it. I was told to pick up my prescriptions and to get a referral for a lung specialist when I felt better.
I used to smoke Marlboro Reds. Now I drag off salbutamol sulfate. I used to drink vodka caesars to cure my hangovers. Now I take azithromycin dihydrate to clean out the viruses. I used to eat steak sandwiches to feel vigorous. Now I take prednisone to give me that extra oomph. I used to masturbate to fall asleep. Now I take pseudoephedrine with codeine to silence the coughing at night.
The doc said that it will take a while and that the coughing won’t last forever.
I think about having a drink and then I remember the cholesterol medication I’ve been taking for the last year — I’m 34. My liver has switched roles, but still works for the same company. I decide it’s time to remove myself from the essential oils and flower bath water. It’s just after 10pm on December 31, and my bottle Milk Thistle capsules is waiting for me to pop open its container, like a bottle of champagne.
