Bursting my bubble (bath)

We've lived in our current home for a little more than 10 years. We moved here from a 30-year-old, 3-bedroom ranch with no basement. When we started thinking about moving and considering what kind of house we wanted, Mike really wanted to build. Although I would have been happy moving to another older home, I agreed to new construction with one caveat.

The new house HAD to have a garden tub with whirpool jets.

As construction got underway and we began to choose paint colors, carpet and trim packages, not surprisingly, the costs of construction began to rise. So one day, Mike said to me, "You know, that whirpool tub is $1,500. We could really save a lot by going with a plain garden tub."

Now, if I were a more sacrificial, fiscally responsible wife, I would have nodded my head and said, "You're right, dear. Whatever you think is best."

But I wasn't. And I didn't. Instead, I think I said something like, "No way! That tub is the ONLY thing I have an opinion about in this house and I am not giving it up."

It wasn't that I was just being stubborn. It was that after three years of bathing in a cramped tub stained rusty with iron deposited by well water, I was looking for a little luxury and relaxation. I was looking for this:



(And yes, in my bathtub fantasy, I was a skinny diva with flowing hair and flawless skin.)

But like most mothers, I've come to accept that dreams and reality are often on divergent paths. Oh, don't get me wrong. Grand bubble baths do take place in my whirlpool tub. But unlike the "relax" picture above, they look more like this:



Fast forward to tonight. Cooler temperatures have arrived. My body is weary from too much time spent in the car, from too little sleep, and, alas from the sheer effect of nearly 40 years logged on these bones.

The kids are all asleep. Mike is engrossed in the new Knight Rider series. These are the times that my garden tub with whirlpool jets were made for. So, I headed for the bathtub -- MY bathtub -- and this is what greeted me:



There was no Godzilla with one arm in my relaxing bath dream. No triceratops waiting to impale my tush, no giant squid or miniature pterodactyl.

When we built this house, had I realized that the kids were going to take over the only space that I planned to call my own, I would have called dibs on the washer and dryer.

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