Shower Curtain Fail

How many shower liners does it take to wrap around a claw foot bathtub?

That may sound like a simple question. But now account for these irritating idiosyncrasies: the shower stem is connected to the wall with a metal rod, preventing a single curtain from covering the front of the tub; the near-side of the oval bar on which to hang the liners is connected to the ceiling with two metal rods, meaning a single curtain, if extended beyond those rods, cannot be pulled open past them; and there must be a way to allow air from the window to flow out the bathroom door after showering to prevent our walls from sprouting mold.

Tiffany and I are spring cleaning. Or, to put it more accurately, we are company-cleaning. We have friends coming into town and so we are re-assessing things, like, our shower curtains, which in six months of use have become quite disgusting. I'll never understand how my mom kept her shower curtains mildew and soap-scum free. She swears it's a simple cleaning spray, but I do not believe her. It's magic, I tell you.

The way Tiffany and I initially solved the problem when we moved in--at our building manager's insistence--was to have three plastic liners for full coverage and draft capabilities. The problem? Three is actually too much curtain, and the slightest draft from even a crack in the door makes showering in our tub a bit like wrapping your body in heavy duty saran wrap.

While Tiffany was in class yesterday, I bought a new clean liner and, when she got home, we tore down two of the old ones.

"Tell me again what you're seeing," I said. I am spatially-challenged and cannot visualize things easily.

"One here, one here, this pulls back, in and out through here, voila!" Tiffany said.

Tiffany visualizes things easily.

I saw no such "voila," but I took her word. We both climbed onto the edge of the tub with our bare feet to hook the new liner onto its hooks. We (Tiffany) had decided on two liners, stretched to their maximum length beyond the metal rods, with not quite full coverage behind the shower head or at the back of the tub.

Tiffany got inside the tub and peered out at me through the plastic.

"Do you see any potential problems?" she asked.

I pointed to the holes.

"Well, only one way to find out," she said.

And then she showered.

Indeed, the real problems were only apparent post-shower, when, still inside, Tiffany tried to reach her towel. It was inaccessible beyond the immovable liner. Then she tried to get out. A little bit tricky, given same immovable liner. Especially given that the lip of the tub comes up past our knees and the hole between the two liners opens right up to our wall-mounted cabinet. Tiffany had to duck out underneath the liner, incurring that same saran-wrap feeling.

And so, we are re-re-assessing. We are considering a third liner, cut into custom-sized pieces to fill the gaps and to allow the near-side liner full movement between the metal rods.

How many liners in all? Two and one half, I'd say. But the better question might be, how many lesbians does it take to figure that out?