Do Your Part to Save the Environment

I had the opportunity to participate in LowVelo down in Charleston over the weekend. LowVelo is bicycling event and a huge fundraiser for the Hollings Cancer Center at MUSC. Participants ride either 25, 50, or 100 miles, and people pledge money for every mile ridden. They raised almost a million dollars, all of which will go towards cancer research. As someone who benefits from cancer research, this is amazing.

The race was on Saturday, and I was going to be speaking at the welcome event on Friday. It was up in North Charleston at the new Riverfront Park.

It was chilly outside. This is an important to the story. And I know that I am a wimp. I know it wasn’t chilly by northern standards. But it was in the low 50s and considering summer in the south goes through Thanksgiving, it was colder than I was used to. I kept standing directly in the light of the sun, but once it made its final dip below the horizon, I was freezing. I was so excited about getting to my room and taking one of those hotel showers. You know the kind where you stand for thirty minutes in the scalding hot water, conveniently forgetting the fact that we are on the brink of an environmental crises.

I got to the hotel at about 8:30. It was a new place right near the water. The lobby was hip and the bar was packed. Part of me felt a little lame heading up to my room at 8:30 on a Friday night, but I had a date with cough syrup and a scalding hot shower.

The room was nice. It had a little sitting area, there was a desk behind the bed. I flipped on the television. The Brooklyn Nets were beating the Houston Rockets. Since I don’t care about either team, I headed to the bathroom to take the shower I’d been dreaming about.

I took off my clothes. The first thing I noticed was that the shower had no door. There was a glass wall, but it covered less than half the shower. I tried to pull the glass wall, thinking it might be some sort of hipster door, but it didn’t move. I pulled it once more, this time with feeling, but again, nothing. I stepped inside and felt the water. Huh. It was still luke warm. I turned the heat up, waited a minute, but nothing happened. I turned the heat all the way, waited another minute, and still was only getting luke warm water. By this point the water had been running for almost five minutes and all I was getting was tepidness. I was naked and sad. And covered in goosebumps. Not today Satan. Not. To. day.

I wrapped a towel around myself and called downstairs.

“Yeah, I’m trying to take a shower but the water is luke warm.”

The response I received from the gentlemen working the front desk wasn’t shock. It wasn’t surprise. “Oh yeah,” he said, “The water takes about 10 to 15 minutes to heat up.”

“The water takes 10-15 minutes to heat up?”

“Yeah, it takes about 10- 15 minutes. I’ll send someone up to the room just to make sure.”

A few minutes later there was a knock on my door. I had kept the water running and a guy stepped his dirty shoe into the shower, felt it, and said, “Yeah, should be there soon.”

Should be there soon? What were we driving to Disney World? By this point the water had been running for over ten minutes and still it had a ways to go?

I started adding up all the rooms in this hotel. There had to be at least 200. And before every person showered the water had to run for 10-15 minutes? And that’s not taking into account the time for the shower itself.

Don’t they know we are on the brink of an environmental crises??

It was another ten minutes before the water was finally hot. While it felt great, I couldn’t enjoy because A- I couldn’t forget about how long the water had been running and B- Due to the lack of a door, I could see the floor to the bathroom being flooded.

I got out, waded through the water in the bathroom, and got ready for bed.

That’s when I noticed the card on the bed.

“Do your part to help save the environment. Reuse your sheets and towels!”

The nerve. The gall. The stones on these people. They’re going to ask me to do my part to save the environment when it takes running their shower for 20 minutes to get the water hot?? And reuse my towels?? I totally would except that I had to use all of them on the bathroom floor because you all decided it would be cool for the shower NOT TO HAVE A DOOR!

I flicked the card across the room, took a swig of my cough syrup, and settled into my New York Times Crossword.

Not today Satan. Not. To. Day.