The Shower Pod
On a recent flight from Toronto to Brussels I had a stopover in London Heathrow where British Airways has an oh-so-lovely business class lounge. And really, there is nothing like shaking off the drudgery of a (champagne sodden) transatlantic flight (where your every ridiculous whim is attended to), by spending some time in a well-appointed business class lounge.
To my delight, I quickly discovered London Heathrow’s British Airways business class lounge has a day spa.
Excited, but trying not to look too much like I’d just tumbled off the pumpkin wagon, I approached the mahogany reception desk to arrange to have a shower. The pretty robe-clad attendant reached to the shelf behind her and took down a puffy, white towel that had, roughly, the surface area of Kuwait. She handed it to me with a smile and said in a lovely British accent “Room 6. Please enjoy the shower pod. Do you have any questions about operating it or can I otherwise assist you”?
Shower pod??? What’s a shower pod? Not wanting to discotinue my charade as a business lounge insider, I opted not to ask her about this. Instead, I thanked her, took the towel and restrained myself from skipping over to room 6.
This delightful little room did, in fact, have something that – if I had been personally responsible for naming it – I also would have named a ‘shower pod’. It was a shower. Encased in a glass pod. I opened the door tentatively, frowning a little at the various buttons and water jets next to what was a rather overlarge console. The console, which looked like it might have been modeled after a modern cockpit instrumentation, was a mindboggingly complex array of dials, buttons, levers and electronic touch pads. Luckily there was a long page of directions etched onto a plaque on the wall next to the pod. Unluckily, I’m not one to read directions. Rather, my mind did what it always does when presented with unfamiliar and interesting gadgets – which is to go “hey, what does this do”?! And then my hands spring into action while my mind then goes off counting blades of grass or something.
The choice between actually experiencing the shower pod or reading about it first for 10 minutes, was really no choice at all. I quickly stripped naked, wrapped a towel around my hair so it wouldn’t get wet, and jumped into the shower pod (and probably yelled ‘woo hoo’ while doing so), closing the door behind me. Once encapsulated in the pod, I stood in front of the console, paused for a brief second to consider a prudent approach, and then enthusiastically grabbed two of the dials and turned them hard in opposite directions.
Immediately the entire room flooded with freezing cold water. I hadn’t noticed the jets on the ceiling or the floor of the pod, and frigid water was now shooting at me from all directions. I screamed. I started running frantically around the pod trying to escape the freezing cold spray while trying to turn the dials off – unfortunately there were cold water jets set to ‘massage’ that were spraying me directly in the face, so I was no longer sure which dials I had initially turned. Also unfortunately, there is no-where to run inside a pod. Dial turning quickly took on a random quality with much whooping and sputtering -- much like a naked Native Rain Dance in reverse.
A few minutes of Arctic face massage and numerous button/lever/touchpad permutations later, I got the jets and temperature under control without actually drowning myself. Relieved, I put the sopping wet towel that had formerly been on my hair onto the pod’s built in seat and sat down breathlessly.
I started laughing, realizing that it seems like I’m always doing something idiotic like that and can’t seem to help it. Chuckling, I soaped up and started to wash my hair. That’s pretty much the same time I started to smell the eucalyptus. Which apparently signals that the water will shut off and that steam will start pouring out of the jets.
Some moments later, after I figured out how to deactivate the steam timer I’d triggered, I rinsed off the soap that I was starting to fear I’d be wearing to Brussels, and got out of the shower pod. Forever.
On a recent flight from Toronto to Brussels I had a stopover in London Heathrow where British Airways has an oh-so-lovely business class lounge. And really, there is nothing like shaking off the drudgery of a (champagne sodden) transatlantic flight (where your every ridiculous whim is attended to), by spending some time in a well-appointed business class lounge.
To my delight, I quickly discovered London Heathrow’s British Airways business class lounge has a day spa.
Excited, but trying not to look too much like I’d just tumbled off the pumpkin wagon, I approached the mahogany reception desk to arrange to have a shower. The pretty robe-clad attendant reached to the shelf behind her and took down a puffy, white towel that had, roughly, the surface area of Kuwait. She handed it to me with a smile and said in a lovely British accent “Room 6. Please enjoy the shower pod. Do you have any questions about operating it or can I otherwise assist you”?
Shower pod??? What’s a shower pod? Not wanting to discotinue my charade as a business lounge insider, I opted not to ask her about this. Instead, I thanked her, took the towel and restrained myself from skipping over to room 6.
This delightful little room did, in fact, have something that – if I had been personally responsible for naming it – I also would have named a ‘shower pod’. It was a shower. Encased in a glass pod. I opened the door tentatively, frowning a little at the various buttons and water jets next to what was a rather overlarge console. The console, which looked like it might have been modeled after a modern cockpit instrumentation, was a mindboggingly complex array of dials, buttons, levers and electronic touch pads. Luckily there was a long page of directions etched onto a plaque on the wall next to the pod. Unluckily, I’m not one to read directions. Rather, my mind did what it always does when presented with unfamiliar and interesting gadgets – which is to go “hey, what does this do”?! And then my hands spring into action while my mind then goes off counting blades of grass or something.
The choice between actually experiencing the shower pod or reading about it first for 10 minutes, was really no choice at all. I quickly stripped naked, wrapped a towel around my hair so it wouldn’t get wet, and jumped into the shower pod (and probably yelled ‘woo hoo’ while doing so), closing the door behind me. Once encapsulated in the pod, I stood in front of the console, paused for a brief second to consider a prudent approach, and then enthusiastically grabbed two of the dials and turned them hard in opposite directions.
Immediately the entire room flooded with freezing cold water. I hadn’t noticed the jets on the ceiling or the floor of the pod, and frigid water was now shooting at me from all directions. I screamed. I started running frantically around the pod trying to escape the freezing cold spray while trying to turn the dials off – unfortunately there were cold water jets set to ‘massage’ that were spraying me directly in the face, so I was no longer sure which dials I had initially turned. Also unfortunately, there is no-where to run inside a pod. Dial turning quickly took on a random quality with much whooping and sputtering -- much like a naked Native Rain Dance in reverse.
A few minutes of Arctic face massage and numerous button/lever/touchpad permutations later, I got the jets and temperature under control without actually drowning myself. Relieved, I put the sopping wet towel that had formerly been on my hair onto the pod’s built in seat and sat down breathlessly.
I started laughing, realizing that it seems like I’m always doing something idiotic like that and can’t seem to help it. Chuckling, I soaped up and started to wash my hair. That’s pretty much the same time I started to smell the eucalyptus. Which apparently signals that the water will shut off and that steam will start pouring out of the jets.
Some moments later, after I figured out how to deactivate the steam timer I’d triggered, I rinsed off the soap that I was starting to fear I’d be wearing to Brussels, and got out of the shower pod. Forever.
posted by Penless Artist at 11:17 p.m.
1 Comments:
Very, very funny!
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