Efficiency

I'm still riding my bike to work a couple of times a week.

There is still no hot water.

This is how you take an ice cold shower:

1. Get washcloth, soap, shampoo and conditioner in the ready position.

2. Turn water on about half-speed and immediately jump under it, washcloth in hand. Your goal here is to get your body as wet as possible, as quickly as possible, with the water that's "in the pipes" and therefore NOT ice cold. Ignore your head at this point Your hair isn't the most important thing yet. Making sure you get the sweat and stink off is the key outcome of this step.

3. As soon as you are wet, turn water OFF. Use washcloth to scrub away. As soon as you are soapy ...

4. Turn water back on ... again at half speed. (You don't want to use that "in the pipes" water too fast.) Rinse as you spin quickly under the trickle. Get hair as wet as you can. Keep that washcloth under the water as much as possible.

5. Turn water off. Shampoo.

6. Turn water on to rinse hair ... but bend forward to do so, so that your butt/body is out of the water and only your head is in. The water is getting colder now.

7. Turn water off for lather #2. And curse the amount of "product" you have in your hair that requires two shampoos to get it all out.

8. Turn water back on for final rinse, again head first. Water is really cold now.

9. Turn water off and apply conditioner, the smallest amount you can. The less you use, the less you have to rinse out.

10. Rinse conditioner from hair. By now, the water is FREEZING and it hurts the back of your head as it hits.

11. Turn water off. Use washcloth to get the last bits of soap off.

12. If you need to make one more swipe of the important parts (my grandma called them the 3 Ps), use the wet washcloth you've been holding on to.

13. Done! And there is no steam to mess up the mirror or wreck your hair. If I had to guess, the water ran for less than 3 minutes.

The good news is that my boss has searched out parts to fix the innards of the faucet on Amazon. He says that I will eventually get warm water. And I'm not going to lie.

I can't wait.