Showers for those who can't see their toes

When I was a sprat, people didn't take showers. They took baths. I can remember of a Saturday night when ma would put a couple of pails of water in the boiler on "Nat King" -- that's what we called our coal furnace -- and pretty soon there's be a tubful of hot water so pa could bathe, then ma, and then us kids, in order of age. I was the youngest.

Nowadays people are too busy to spend a half-hour in the bathtub, and hot water is not such a precious commodity as it was back when, so people take showers, some as often as once a day. Trouble is, although we now have built-in bathtubs, better than the galvanized tub in the kitchen, the design and dimensions of tubs haven't changed in decades. If anything, bathtubs have gotten smaller.

But people have gotten larger -- much larger! Which explains the invention of the curved shower curtain rod shown at left. A generation or two ago, most people could be comfortable in a tub fitted with a straight rod. Their width did not exceed that of the tub and all was well.

Now, however, the majority of Americans are overweight, fat, or downright obese. Not to mention morbidly obese. Canadians can wipe the smug smirks off their faces because the BMI figures for Canucks are almost as bad. [Those of course are round figures. Ed.] So more people are feeling the cold, wet shower curtain clinging to the sausage casings they call their skins. Not pleasant.

Congratulations, then, to whoever invented the curved shower curtain rod. As suggested in the picture, it increases space. And it decreases discomfort. So now, thanks to this miracle of modern engineering, ladies like these can have showers without getting the bathroom floor wet.