I spent most of Friday night and the wee hours of Saturday morning sitting on the porch with a beer in hand, telling stories with friends while Ray Charles did his thing in the background. It was a helluva time, but it left me a little worse for the wear when I got up the next morning.

Usually, a crisp shower helps me regain something resembling composure, so I headed off towards the bathroom. Eyes barely open, I hobble in to the tub, pull the curtain, and start the water. I reached up to tilt the showerhead and point the stream of water further towards the back of the shower. Apparently, I am in such awesome physical condition, that with a mere flick of my wrist I can snap shit in two - because that's exactly what the shower head did. The collar that twists onto the pipe coming out of the wall just cracked from end to end. I muster the kind of garbled, incoherent swearing stereotypically attributed to someone suffering from a hangover.

Water begins spraying all over the place - on the walls and ceiling over the showerhead, in my face, over the curtain rod, everywhere. I'm still swearing, something like "Shitshitshitahhhfuckshitshit etc., and I've got my hands wrapped around the threaded collar to prevent it from spraying everywhere, but I realize immediately that it's exacerbating the situation. Not only can I NOT turn off the water (since both hands are on the leaking head) but the tiny gaps between my fingers and palms are only providing more holes for the damn water to spray out of. Good thing for me, this morning my brain is working as deftly as my rippling, PVC plastic wrending muscles. I lift my right foot up to the shower knob on the wall and try to push the nob down into the 'Off' position. I get my foot up there, and apply gentle pressure to the knob while my hands are wrapped over the shower head above. My left foot slips on the wet bathtub floor and I go airborne.

I guess the pressure I was applying to the knob couldn't be countered by the single foot I was standing on at the time. My left foot slipped forward, and the right foot that was pushing against the shower wall propels me backwards. My grip on the shower head turns the crack in the collar into a shatter, and the entire assembly comes off. We have one of those massage showerheads on a length of hose, so there's quite a lot of debris flying around at this point. When I realize I'm about to knock myself out on the tub floor and drown in my own bathwater, I do what only comes naturally - I reach out for the shower curtain to my left.

I'd like to take a moment here and just say: Yes, I know that was dumb. The second I reached out for the damn thing, I knew it was a dumb move. But I figured it was better than just enjoying the ride.

The curtain rod holds for a split second, my decent stalls, and the curtain in my fist swings just a little further left. Before it snaps. You know how shower curtain rods are - they're held in place by friction basically, braced against the bathroom wall. Well, I guess that slight swing to the left was enough to pull one of the ends out, and I finish the homestretch of my little morning decent. The rod comes clanging down, my ribcage its the rim of the tub, and I damn near knock my gord on the toilet seat. The pipe where the showerhead used to be is still spraying cold water, and the showerhead itself is wrapped around my arm. I groan. I just wanted a shower.