You're Telling Me?

This bathroom remodel has almost cost my husband his life. And not just him, but every male who has had anything to with it. Men and their tools, I have discovered, are not to be questioned, for any reason, at any time, by a woman and her sensible logic.

Take for example this one instance out of innumerable instances: It was time to pick tile for the floor and the shower. When I say that it was time to select tile, I do not mean it was time to explore samples and compare materials and ponder products. No. What I mean is that my husband had worked himself into a complete tile emergency. We had to pick the tile, then, right then, that day. It had to be done without delay. No time for careful thought. Do you hear me? IT WAS AN EMERGENCY!

So there we are at the tile store, me and my husband, with the contractor on the phone, the salesman assisting us, and the store owner hovering about. Not one of them seemed to have any clue about how close I was to going postal in the place.

I see my husband nodding and saying, "Uh-huh, uh-huh," into his cell phone.

"What now?" I whisper.

"He says not to forget the towel bar for the shower," explains my husband.

"We're not putting a towel bar in the shower," I tell him. Any decorator types might disagree with me, but a towel bar in a shower makes absolutely no sense to me. Why do people do that? A towel hanging on a towel bar in the shower must be removed and put somewhere else (at my house, that would be the floor) before anyone can take a shower. Otherwise, the towel will get wet.

My husband says a few more uh-huhs, then addresses me again, "It's standard to put a towel bar on the end wall of the shower. We're paying experts to help us with this, so let's let them."

Again, I don't see it that way. I'm paying experts to advise me and then to do what I tell them I want done. "No towel bar," I repeat.

The salesman overhears our tift and rushes in to help. "He's right. All showers have towel bars on the end wall opposite the the shower head. Why don't I show you a few examples." The owner of the store nods in agreement. All showers have towel bars.

Again, I explain why WE will not be installing a towel bar IN our shower. But I express that we would like to install a recessed shelf for shampoo and such. I am taken and shown my options. Then guess what ALL those men tell me when I tell them I want it placed on the wall opposite the shower head (where the towel bar is generally placed)?

They say that "typically" those shelves are installed on the long wall of the shower. Why? Because, as they each explain it to me, in all seriousness, your shampoo and such will get wet if it's on the wall opposite the shower head. And they insist that I change my mind!

I did not. Sensibility and logic both prevailed in that particular instance, keeping me from lasering everyone of those men, including one via a wireless connection, with my well-practiced evil eye. Those men and their tools are working hard to put that shelf exactly where I advised them to put it, without a ridiculous matching towel bar.