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Sunday, November 20, 2011

No DIY or HGTV Episode was consulted in the Writing of this Piece

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for left handed tub

When I designed our house thirty years ago, no one told me I should plan for a left handed tub. Let me explain. I am right handed so I designed a right handed house. Most of the doors are hung with hinges on the right. You step up to the door, extend your right hand, grab the door knob, and pull the door toward you. Right handed door. I also have a right handed refrigerator and kitchen cabinets, that don't have two doors, are right handed cabinets. The same is true for our three bathtubs. They are all right handed bathtubs. You step up to the tub, face the faucets and shower head. Extending your right hand, you reach in and turn on the water. Then right foot first, you step into the tub.

All this has worked fine for thirty years and 315 days. At thirty years and 316 days I limped into the podiatrist's office to discover I have plantar fasciitis (limping right foot). After taping my foot into permanent field goal kicker position, I was told to go home and never, ever get the tape wet until it was time to remove the tape; that being one week. They offered me a shower cap for the foot for $10. HA! I am a creative former theatre person who has made do with nothing for thirty-nine years as a public school teacher. I think I can manage to keep one foot dry for a week.

My original plan was to just stand my right foot out of the tub while I showered. I did not count on the right handed house design. The master bathtub is right handed. To keep the right foot out of the tub, I would have to turn on the water with my right hand, then hop around and step into the tub with my back to the shower, and my foot out of the tub. Not an easy task. The other two bathtubs were also right handed tubs. The only left handed tub was in the RV and I wasn't up to hiking out there with no hot water.

The next creative solution was to wrap my foot in a trash bag and tape it closed. The only tape I had was that blue painters tape. That seemed to work pretty well except when I got out of the tub, I couldn't tell if I had gotten the foot wet or it was just sweaty from the steam and length of time the foot had been in the bag.

The next night I wrapped a wash cloth around the upper part of my ankle, put the trash bag on secured with a rubber band, and followed by more blue painters tape. This time when I removed the painter's tape (which is paper and somewhat soggy) the towel was damp. I couldn't tell if I had gotten the foot wet or not because the rubber band had cut off the circulation to my foot.

Tonight I think I will just sit in the tub, backwards, and hang my foot over the side. No way am I going back to the podiatrist's office and admit I do need a $10 foot shower cap! Course if hubby has to call the EMT's to come with a wench to haul me out of the bathtub; a $10 shower cap might be a bargain.

HGTV never tells you about right handed bathtubs. I may have to start hanging out at Home Depot or Lowe's looking for Bath Crashers Matt Muenster. I wonder if he has ever designed a left handed bathroom?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you are having your difficulties. Hope the week passes quickly for you.

Starting Over, Accepting Changes - Maybe said...

I never thought of any of that right handed/left handed stuff. However, as we get older, certain things happen to make us think of how we are positioned. All I can say is Good Luck. Things do not get easier ever, do they.

Sharon said...

So sorry to hear about your pain. But, you always sseem to make the worse things seem funny.

Hint: once the tape is off go to a Reflexologist. She can fix your plantar faciitis in about 20 minutes. I used to do it all the time. I'll do it for free - if you provide the plane tickets. :-)