Bathroom Wars

An internecine war has broken out among soldiers on the FOB, and the battleground is the bathrooms.

We have “Cadillacs” for shower and bathroom facilities. That is, modular buildings plumbed and outfitted for one or the other of the functions. The buildings are set by a crane on cement blocks, and plumbed into the black and gray water systems. Buildings run in two lines through our CHU area, showers all in a row behind the restrooms, also all in a row. Each building has one door, and two windows on opposite walls. The windows can be opened part way. Fans next to the windows exhaust air 24/7.

These buildings are okay, as far as they go. The restrooms tend to get dirty, and the showers tend to run out of hot water, but all in all, adequate. The worst part, I think, is doing the shower shuffle, i.e., walking from the CHU to the shower, carrying your little ditty bag and towel. For me, that’s about the length of a football field. Well, actually, the worst part is the dirt bags who never learned how to clean up after themselves and leave evidence of their passing in the sink and on the floor.

People being people, they have their preferences. If the windows are closed, the fans pull in air from the sewer because the sinks and urinals don’t have P traps to stop the inflow of sewer gas. So if the windows are closed, the rooms stink. If the windows are open, it lets in hot air and overpowers the air-conditioning. So I’ll walk in a bathroom with the windows shut and open them to get in some air. Later I’ll return and someone will have shut them, preferring cool sewer gas over warm oxygen. And back and forth.

Likewise, the showers. We have flimsy plastic shower curtains, with smiling fish or happy whales or pastel geometric designs. Being flimsy, and soldiers being pretty ham-fisted, the curtains don’t last too long and are frequently replaced. As you shower, the air is warmed by the shower water and rises, sucking in the lightweight shower curtain and plastering the moldy fabric against your leg, which is nasty.

Apparently two schools of thought about how to avoid this prevail. One, lower the curtain rod so far that the curtain laps onto the ground. The other, raise it so that plenty of air can flow under it and avoid sucking in the curtain. In the shower I prefer, the curtain rod goes up and down as much as a window shade. I used to be a low-rod ground-lap man, but lately it doesn’t seem to matter if my ankles show.