Bathtime

Growing up my siblings and I shared one bath tub together, Then when I was 9 years old I asked to have my own bath time because it was getting so crowded. I loved taking showers BUT those were only for our father. He hated running out of hot water most of all, if by accident we flushed the other toilet or ran water in the kitchen sink there would be such a warning panic from the rest of the family noticing this. Our father would be in his shower suddenly yelling angrily and running out of the bathroom in his towel trying to find who did that. This was terrifying to any small child but all of us kids would run outside or hide under our bed because we forgot Dad was in the shower when we ran water. To say I grew up in a crazy place is putting it mildly......Yet I like how I have some many funny stories as these to always remember. As a small kid I had high standards for my bath time, it would drive my mom crazy that I had to wash the tub out first before filling it with water for our bath. Mom would come into the yellow old bathroom of the trailer house saying "I told you to fill the tub." I would stop to look up at her with a wash rag (at the age of only seven) I had to CLEAN the tub first with soap and water to wipe the soap sum and hair all down the drain or I would be grossed out. My mom thought I was crazy and sometimes even got mad saying "GET IN! Enough already!" (I still have that phobia of not a clean tub to bath in) Our rule of bath time was changing as we grew older, suddenly I wanted my own bath time and then so did my sister and then my brother...Mom said it was crazy how much water we used, so we had to share the bath water until we were teenagers or I was 16 finding ways around it. There is nothing more gross then working on farm full of bugs and dust to be the last in a line of 3 teenagers using the same bath water because your parents want to save the hot water for themselves. We were all willing to do this for so long because if our father didn't have his own hot shower he would be in a really bad mood. My sister Dana was the first to brake this horrid rule of sharing bath water. Our sibling fighting was growing as we have to take turns at who got to bath first. On Days Dana was last she went out a bath. By the time a 12 year old boy, a 16 year old girl washed all the farmland dirt off  Dana would be left staring at a gray dark tub of floating grass and hair. She would refuse a bath just that simple. Then Mom noticed every so often Dana was waiting every 3 days to wash. There was a huge argument over this, I tried to find my own way around things too. When no one was home I would jump into the forbidden shower of my parents, I loved my soapy lufa  and how clean my long hair got from an actual nice shower. I had to sneak around for this luxury, but it was so worth it! Finally Mom gave in to Dana's bath time complaints, Mom said we could change the bath tub water ONLY if it was a gray color. Suddenly even my brother Derek was happily saying the water was looking GRAY! It was a sweet little victory of freedom for us. When the day came that Dana and I got our very own bedrooms in the cottage across the yard from my parents, we were beyond thrilled and excited for our very own bathroom too! I had my own showering place at any hour I wanted! I couldn't believe it! So on that very first night in our cottage, Dana was humming along happily to her own music and I took a really long hot shower at 3am! I shouted out to Dana with my sudsy hair "This is so WONDERFUL!" Dana replied back "YUP! Sure beats trying to figure out what color the used water is!" We laughed happily in our own place.