Shower Chair

Because of my age and condition, my partner Nuria decided that I might fall down in the shower and therefore I needed a shower chair. In case you don't know this, you can buy a shower chair and sit in it while you bathe. So she bought a shower chair at Walmart. It came in pieces in a box.

We opened the box and took out bag after bag of parts. There were instructions on how to assemble the chair, but assembly required as much guesswork as reading the instructions. It took 30 minutes but we got it assembled. We took it to the bathroom and tried to fit it into the bathtub, but it wouldn't fit. It would fit sideways, but who takes a shower with the water coming at them from one side? Nobody.

We took the chair to the living room and disassembled it. Taking it apart took only half the time that putting it together required. We put the parts back into the plastic bags, but we had bags left over. We stuffed those into the box and taped it shut.

A day or two later, Nuria brought home another chair. This was just an outdoor folding chair that you might use to seat your friends around a BBQ pit and enjoy the warmth of the flames and the smell and taste of pit-cooked BBQ. We opened up the chair and put it in the bathtub facing the shower head. It fit perfectly. 

Now it remained to try it out. I had doubts, but I turned on the shower and adjusted the water temperature and then sat down in the chair.

The warm water sprayed over me. I washed my hair and face, my chest and stomach, and my arms and legs. Nuria washed my back. It was like a massage combined with a warm shower. It was better than I could have ever guessed it would be. I've had a massage done by a professional masseuse and this felt better (though not nearly as long). I'm a believer now. 

What happened to the first shower chair? Walmart said they'd refund our purchase price but they didn't want the chair returned to them. It makes sense. They'd have to open the box, remove all the parts, make sure all the parts were present, repack the parts, and put them back into a new cardboard box. The cost of the labor for doing that was more than the profit they'd make on the chair. 

All in all, it was an interesting experience.