We never had a shower when I was growing up. Or rather, we did have a shower, but it was so disgusting and so ridiculous that I refused to use it. My dad, thinking that baths wasted too much water, installed a shower in our unfinished basement. There was no stall or tile or anything like that -- just a shower head attached to the moldy, cobwebby water pipes in the ceiling. The idea was that you stood there naked on the grimy cement floor, between the wood furnace and the washing machine, and turned on the water. It was kind of like something out of a horror movie.

Or at least I imagined it was, since I never used it once in all the years I lived there. I grew up on baths and baths alone, and that was fine with me.

Sure, it was a little impractical at times. It was pretty much impossible for me to get up early enough to take a bath before school in junior high, when class started well before dawn, and I lived a half-hour bus ride from the school. But still, it beat showering in the basement.

As an adult, I always had a shower and a bath, and made ample use of both of them, up until three years ago when I moved into a place that had only a shower. Admittedly, it was the greatest shower ever invented, with lots of water pressure and as much scalding water as you could take. But there was no bath. It was fine. For awhile.

When I moved downstairs of where I live now, the place had tub -- a really nice tub to tell the truth. But the baths it gave left a lot to be expected. The water pressure was low, so that it took a long time to fill up, and then the water never really got that hot.

In short, what I'm getting at is, it's been three years since I've had a really good bath.

I had to work overtime tonight, and then there was all this social activity beckoning. But I went home because I really needed a shower. I went into the bathroom and suddenly realized: this bathtub will work perfectly.

Wow. That's all I have to say.