A SHOWER STALLED

Recently, the Chicago Tribune published an article written by travel guru Rick Steves captioned : "European Loos Not Made For Lingering."* The gist of the article is that European bathrooms, and particularly the shower stalls, can be quite quirky.

However, the article does not mention an issue that my wife and I repeatedly have encountered during travel in Europe and stays at hotels: how does one turn on and turn off the showers and adjust the water temperature. While using shower controls should seem an easy enough exercise, the controls tend to be rather unique and foreboding, and no hotel provides instructions as to how to use them.

For example, during our travel to Europe earlier this month, at one well-starred hotel, the shower stall controls comprised three small, unmarked levers. Randomly moving one lever activated a roaring river of cold water out of the low faucet designed to fill the bathtub in which I was now standing, but not the shower head. The other levers appeared to do nothing, like placebos. Finally, after some 15 minutes of standing in the rushing cold water in the bath tub and frantically twisting all three levers, somehow water began to drip from the shower head. We have no idea how this happened, so we had to keep everything running as each person popped in and out of the stall. Of course, the whole process had to be repeated the next morning.

Another example on the same trip involved a shower stall that had no levers or any other visible controls. Instead, the only thing that was showing was a chrome tube with a rounded end coming out of the wall, and having the appearance of a large suppository suitable for an elephant. Again, only after at least 15 minutes of grasping and twisting at this tube did water magically begin to pour from the shower head.

Any one who has seen Dvorak's opera Rusalka can readily conclude that European showers are controlled not by levers and handles but by Vondik, the water goblin.

We have concluded that the pressing matter of shower stall controls is ripe for regulation by some EU or UN agency so as to provide uniformity of controls and public information on use of the controls. In the meantime, we will seek assistance from Vondik next time we travel to Europe.

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* (Section 3, p.2, April 13, 2014)