Productivity in the sH2Ower

Positive? Well my fingers are not quite as prune-y once I get out of the shower. But to my own surprise, my showers have become a lot more productive compared to what/when I do shower activities in the allotted time I give myself. Without getting too intimate about my shower routine I have one example of how I think I save time. First off I have long hair that easy tangles from years of being drenched in chlorine and stuffed into a latex cap. It is a huge hassle to brush out all of the conditioner as well as brush it in the shower. To make the most of my time I let the conditioner sit in my hair while I use body wash. The conditioner works its magic and so does my yummy smelling body wash. That being said, I have fallen into a steady rhythm that is pretty easy to maintain.

The hardest thing: Knowing my room mate is going to be taking a luxuriously long shower at night. I am NOT trying to sound creepy; my roommate is notorious in the house for these long showers. The showers my roommate takes are even longer than mine (before the challenge began) which a) makes me feel a lot better about myself and b) makes me want to tell her she is the single-most reason the motto “save some water for the fishies” was coined. Actually I do want to tell her that she should consider attempting my sustainable behavior challenge (she is fully aware of it; after every one of my showers she hears me complaint a little…) but she would probably retort back, “well I am just using your extra shower time you gave up.”

So far I have raced out of the shower a total of three times with conditioner in my hair, twice after lifting I forgot about the challenge mid-way through my shower and only two times forgot about the challenge completely after practice. I am pretty proud of myself for staying strict with this behavior so far. I have had a few friends peer edit my previous posts and they have become very interested in the concept of the challenge over all, initially I was not sure if anyone would care about “Sidney’s shorter shower shenanigan” but I was proven wrong!

An article I found to better understand my water consumption is shockingly related to meat. The Environmental Impact of a Meat-Based Diet from the Vegetarian Times focuses on going meatless but also how raising the livestock requires water… The article states that the Water Education Foundation estimated it takes 2,464 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef. That is equivalent to taking “a seven-minute shower every day for six entire months.” If that doesn’t sound bad enough, I realized that I have taken much longer showers everyday for as long as I can remember… Next challenge: go meatless???