I Think My Husband Is Flame Retardant

Posted on 01.28.07 in Family and there are

My husband takes really, really hot showers.

The way our shower works is that there is one knob. Turn the water on by pushing it up, down is off. Twist it left for hot and right for cold.

Since I tend to be a night owl, my husband always takes his shower first and I have far too often made the mistake of just turning the water on and jumping in for my shower without testing the water first.

I think I actually saw my toenail melt yesterday. All the polish is gone and I’m also rather certain I also actually SAW the soap in the process of melting.

Perhaps I should start making my husband take his shower just before dinner. I could throw some fish and veggies in foil on the bathroom counter and they should be nicely cooked by the time he’s done. Dinner’s ready!

Seriously, I think he’s flame retardant or something. I don’t understand how he emerges from 20 minutes in searing heat without being slightly...poached.

Then again....he DID grow up in Houston. (If you’ve ever been to Houston in the summer you know what I’m talking about here...)

(Community Question: Are you a morning shower-er or a night shower-er?)

The Comments:

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morning!!...if i don’t take a shower in the morning i feel gross all day…

It’s a guy thing, you probably wouldn’t understand. 

Definitely morning.

Okay you made me laugh with your title.  I don’t care what the rest of the post says, the title is enough on its own.  Even my husband laughed when I read it to him.

Morning!

ok, so you’ve seen my hair...it can get kind of....fro-ish if i’m not careful with it. since i’m back in the o.r., i get to wear a surgical cap all day, so i get to shower at night (it makes for a quicker get away in the morning). when i have to look presentable for patients, i don’t have any choice but to shower in the morning, so i can put gel in it to keep from looking like a q-tip.

oh, and i love me some hot showers...i like to just stand there and not think about anything while it melts my back muscles...ahh....

I feel I must defend myself.  Were I as witty as Brant Handsome or any number of responders to my dear wife’s blog, I am sure I could deliver a reply that ended with something along the lines of the ever popular closer....boo-ya. 

Instead, I will content myself with this.... please raise your cyber hand if you also, after washing, like to stand in the shower and turn the temperature up by degrees....slowly, slowly, slowly.  It’s relaxing, except when Kat decides to start the dishwasher while I am doing this.  Then the water temperature gets all out of whack and I really do get poached. 

Not that I would be against being fire retardant.  I can see many benefits to this, including a movie deal and numerous books.

Letter from Benjamin Franklin to To Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg
-------
London, July 28, 1768.

I greatly approve the epithet, which you give in your letter of the 8th of June, to the new method of treating the small-pox, which you call the tonic or bracing method. I will take occasion from it, to mention a practice to which I have accustomed myself. You know the cold bath has long been in vogue here as a tonic; but the shock of the cold water has always appeared to me, generally speaking, as too violent: and I have found it much more agreeable to my constitution, to bathe in another element, I mean, cold air. With this view I rise early almost every morning, and sit in my chamber, without any clothes whatever, half an hour or an hour, according to the season, either reading or writing. This practice is not in the least painful, but on the contrary, agreeable; and if I return to bed afterwards, before I dress myself, as sometimes happens, I make a supplement to my night’s rest, of one or two hours of the most pleasing sleep that can be imagined. I find no ill consequences whatever resulting from it, and that at least it does not injure my health, if it does not in fact contribute much to its preservation. I shall therefore call it for the future a bracing or tonic bath.
--------------
So, there you have an historical answer.

MY SWEET HUSBAND COMMENTED!

Is he not cute AND witty too?

Brant “Handsome”, boo-ya, dishwasher....

He’s so cute.....

I’d also like to introduce John John - he’s my soon-to-be brother-in-law. That’s right, my wonderful sister-in-law is getting married. Yeah!

Kat,
My husband is also flame retardant.  I can identify with your melted toenails.  However, in his defense, the condition may be perpetuated by my usually cold feet.  Perhaps the water is not as hot at it seems.  Then again, our soap does tend to go a lot faster since winter has come!

Just thought I’d mention that “retardant” isn’t one of those words you can glance at… it takes a careful look to make sure another word is not mistakenly read.  Lilia

Were it true that I am flame retardant, I would not readily admit it.  Surely the medical and military community would want to dissect me at the soonest possible moment to try and determine what is causing the phenomenon, and to see if they can replicate it.  Further, they might not scruple about waiting until I actually expire, national security being in the balance.

Ah, Jimmy, I see you have both a healthy dose of paranoia and seem to have watched many of the same Sci-Fi movies as myself.  Don’t worry; you’re secret is safe in this little community.

On a completely unrelated topic, does anyone out there know a mad government scientist employed in a hidden lab by an ambitious general who might be looking for a new breakthrough in his/her research?

I’m with you Jimmy.  I do the temp. turner-upper-thing at the end.

Same here, Seth and Jimmy.  I always turn it hotter at the end.

My husband likes his showers much hotter than mine too!  The only time I took a shower that hot was when I was in labor...it did feel pretty good to the old back (of course, so did the needle for the epidural at that point!).

Jimmy, Seth, Stephen, add my name to the list.  Start temperately warm, (which my wife would still say is too hot), and move hotter by degrees.  That’s how you start a morning.

Turned up the temp this morning in the shower and thought of you guys. That was DEFINITELY a first.

Hey Kat,who woulda thought that a post about your husband taking a shower would generate so many comments?

Rick,
Just wait until I write my post about his tooth brushing routine. (jk) Apparently, my husband’s hygiene habits are a hot topic.

I found your site via Brian at CopyBlogger and couldn’t leave without commenting.

What surprised me more than your ‘flaming retard’ husband was that you only take one shower per day. My husband and I both shower in the morning and the evening and always have.

Andrea,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I do know several people who shower twice a day...interesting. I’m afraid our shower would melt. It seems to need 24 hours to recover from the temperature of my husband’s searing showers.

So I’m not the only one! My wife has long gotten after me for taking really hot showers, (in the morning BTW) but that’s the only way I’ll have ‘em.

David,
No, apparently it’s quite normal. You’ll have to print this post out and show your wife if she gives you a hard time again.

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment!

That was funny. My husband is the same way. But, once you are burned once it kind of jogs your memory when you go to the shower that the water is usually on HELL instead of just hot.

morning....but since i work graveyards now...when ever i’m not too tired to stand up. i couldn’t agree more with the flame retardant hubby...mine is too!!!

I often have to take evening showers.  Also sometimes evening is the only time I have to take a shower even though I like morning showers reason being a certain 3 year old who is usually up at the crack of dawn whose main mission in life is to drive me to distraction with desperate pleas for [fill in the blank i.e. milk, cereal, kill a spider, find a random blanket, go to the zoo, go to Legoland, have eggs, change current set of PJs to new PJs, etc.) and weird attention to minutia that takes up every waking moment leaving Mom no choice but to sneak a shower in at the dead of night.

Even though this is a few years from the original post I just needed to post that in my marriage, it is I, the wife that takes the hot showers. My husband can’t stand popping in to the bathroom for something when I’m taking a shower. And yes, I often do the slow temperature rising adjustments at the end of the shower to finish it off.

(And I prefer to shower in the morning. Can’t stand sleeping in wet hair or even taking the time to dry it before going to bed.)

OK, so I’m a little late to the party. In my house we have the opposite dynamic. I love a hot, hot shower and Flyboy likes it not so hot. Since I used shower first, it worked out. I used all the hot water and he took a warmish shower.Then the dynamic changed and I was the one getting the warmish shower. For me, there’s not much worse. So we replaced our traditional water heater with an on-demand AKA instant, water heater and I can now take my boiling hot showers. We never run out of hot water.

BTW, in answer to your question, I prefer morning showers, although I sometimes shower at night if I’m wound up and think I won’t be able to sleep.

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