domestic dilettante, humorless feminist shrew

So this last week, Maura and I have had the crud. Different kinds of crud, but…crud. The list of things making me happy right now is brief: popsicles, slushees, my new showerhead.

Of those things, I’m betting that you guys already know about how awesome popsicles and slushees are, so instead, we’re going to talk about my new showerhead!

Before buying a showerhead, I first thought I would do some research. This led me to Consumer Reports, which reviewed a bunch of expensive ($50+) showerheads. There was also a terrifying section on “shower towers”, which are mind-bogglingly expensive handheld showerheads that also have body jets. I’m not sure how it works, to be honest, mostly because I was busy trying to figure out what kind of person would spend $1100 on a showerhead. (Said showerhead didn’t seem to double as a transport device to a deserted waterfall on a tropical island, so…)

Obviously, I was not Consumer Reports’ target audience for this. So I did what all thinking people do, looked at a few showerheads on Amazon, and then asked Twitter about my impending showerhead purchase. Within ten minutes, I had half a dozen votes for the Peerless Shower System, so I bought it.

Thanks to the magic of a free Amazon Prime membership, it showed up two days later, and I set forth to do battle with the disgusting old showerhead, which, I think, was installed in about 1964 and never replaced. This was more difficult than planned, and required several angry tweets and a bit of blood sacrifice. (Apparently when you accidentally apply torque to your hand instead of the showerhead, the skin tears. Who knew?)

Once that was down, though, the new shower went up in about five minutes. Despite what some Amazon reviewers said about the washers, mine were the standard black plastic kind, which work just fine–no leaking here.

Anyhow, the new showerhead? It’s like magic! Maura can be in the shower with me, and we both have water. I can use the handheld part to wash her hair, and still keep myself cosy warm under the wall-mounted part, which means that I can wash myself while she’s in the shower instead of waiting until she’s out and using the last few drops of hot water to rinse myself with. There are settings on this showerhead–multiple ones, including a please-don’t-hurt-my-premenstrual-breasts setting. After all this time with the one-setting, non-handheld crappy showerhead that we had, this is a major, life-altering event. No longer will I desperately speed-shower with one arm flung protectively over my chest. Instead, I will bask in the warm, comforting fall of water, and I’ll be happy about it.

In conclusion, those of you who have mediocre showerheads should consider buying one of these right now, because they are amazing.

Also, this is making me wonder what other obvious home improvements I’m missing. We bought this house about eighteen months ago, and it’s still virtually unchanged from when we bought it, despite the fact that the people living here before us were old, boring, and inexplicably fond of beige, brown, and tan.

The showerhead was a good start, but now what? The idea of tackling, like, repainting (with a kid, eight cats, and a dog) is sort of overwhelming to me, but surely there are other projects that are relatively easy but have a good return, right? What have you guys done that you think is totally worth it?