The Morning After: The Power of Shower Shoes

Sophomore year I had gone through a bad breakup, things weren’t going so well with my roommate and my grades were plummeting. Long days running my frustration out at the gym and longer nights of drowning my sorrows in alcohol were really wearing down my system. I knew a breakdown was looming, but there was no predicting when or where it was going to happen.

Which was quite unfortunate for me.

I began to hang out with a freshman that I had known from my hometown. He was a good friend and I felt really comfortable with him. One weekend night, we had gone out to a party together and gone back to my dorm room after. My roommate was asleep in her bed and things between us were less than stellar, so me and the boy had to find another place suitable for… Well, you know.

My room was conveniently located right across the hall from the bathroom and we found sanctuary in the shower stall. With the water running and privacy in the form of a plastic curtain, we were good to go. Things went smoothly for awhile, and then I felt a rising bubble of panic in my chest. Maybe it was the thought of rubbing up against the dirty shower walls, or maybe it was just finally my time to let it all out, but something was happening.

Yes, I was about to have a mental breakdown right in the middle of shower sex. Talk about inopportune.

I buckled right then and there, sank to the bottom of the shower, and poured my heart out to this man. Actually, I poured it out to his junk, which was then at eye level. To say I was sobbing is an understatement. The combination of alcohol and panic created a toxic truth serum, and I told him everything that was plaguing me. As a nice snot/water mixture dripped down my face. I then made him run across the hall to my sleeping roommate, naked mind you, and fetch me a towel.

The next morning we began to discuss what had happened the night before. Color me mortified. In the light of day, my shower stall confessions were humiliating and I had no way of erasing them. Or did I.

In my best attempt at seriousness, I looked him straight in the eye and said: “I wasn’t crying last night because of everything I told you. I was crying because I wasn’t wearing shower shoes.”

He nodded his head and said he understood. Those bathrooms can be quite unsanitary.

It was then that I learned the greatest life lesson: Never underestimate the power of shower shoes.