Shower Thoughts
Me
I had a shower thought, about taking a shower. The thought intrigued me and I haven't stopped thinking about it. It intrigued me so much that I couldn’t keep it to myself any longer, so I’ve come to share it with you. I think I’ll make this a series, so with that said, welcome to the pilot of Shower Thoughts.
One of the key parts about taking a shower is spending five minutes balancing the flow of the cold and hot water to get the temperature just right. This act of making minor adjustments to the cold and hot water taps (or lever) is what my thought is based on.
If you’ve ever showered later than everyone else, (or if that’s just your routine like me) you’ll know about the struggle of there no longer being any hot water when you get around to it. Another version of the struggle is when there still is some hot water, but you can feel it finishing as you shower, which is much worse in my opinion. The latter version is what got me thinking.
I thought, I can feel this water losing its heat because it’s happening at a relatively fast rate. What if it were to happen at a slower rate though? A much much slower rate. Would I still be able to tell that the temperature is changing, or would my body not be sensitive enough to sense it and I end up showering with substantially cooler water? My initial thought was that there must be some threshold at which a trigger in my body goes off, maybe when I start getting goosebumps but I don’t really have an understanding of how the body deals with changes in temperatures to know.
In the same breath, I also thought about the temperature going the other way. If the temperature were to be raised at a very gradual rate, would I be able to tell that this water is getting hotter? And instead of goosebumps the sensation of getting burnt. In this version, you might actually be more likely to pick up the difference because although a cold shower is definitely a thing, the human won’t be able to tolerate a shower that’s too hot.
My guess is that at a gradual enough rate, you likely won’t be able to tell that the temperature is changing, given that you don’t know that that’s what’s happening beforehand that is. The problem with this though is that with the average shower being only eight minutes long, there just isn’t enough time. I reckon you’d have to stand in the shower for a solid few hours which is tiring, bad for your skin and ain’t nobody got time for that.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, especially if you know some stuff about how the body reacts to changes in temperature. Would you be willing to stand in a shower to find out the answer? Do you think this whole idea is just ridiculous? Let’s hear it.