Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: Shower Curtains

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David Farrier sets out to understand why America - despite all its advancements in innovation and technology - has decided to stick with the puzzling shower curtain. Why, while countries like New Zealand embrace the shower door, is America stuck in a long-term love affair with the fabric (or sometimes plastic) mistress? David calls his old friend Harvey from the Toilets episode to discuss American showering habits, before spending the day with the self-proclaimed “Glass Queen” who spends her days removing shower curtains and replacing them with glistening shower doors. He talks to professor David Schmidt about his complex mathematical simulations of shower curtains, to discover why the shower curtain insists on sticking to your body while you shower. Maybe this is a clue to why 66% of Americans shower daily, compared with 80% of Australians… and why 10 million Americans shower once a week or less. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now there are a lot of things I'm learning to love about this country, from the giant burgers to the obsession with football, baseball, and Disneyland. But there are things that are still utterly mystifying and confusing to me too. Things that make me want to scream at the heavens, like Brad Pitt at the end of Seven. Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!

And at the top of my list of depraved things Americans do? Shower curtains. Because America is obsessed with shower curtains. In New Zealand, we have shower doors. You open the door and you step in. Beautiful light enters the shower. We're happy and we're free. But in America, I pull the shower curtain across and I'm sealed inside a dark, moldy cave.

Maybe that's why Americans don't shower as much as some. Studies have 66% of Americans showering daily compared with 80% in the likes of Australia. 3% of Americans shower once a week or less. That's almost 10 million people. Now, of course, many% of Americans shower once a week or less. That's almost 10 million people. Now, of course, many countries also have shower curtains, but America prides itself on progress and innovation, shiny new things. So why has it decided to keep the humble shower curtain? So get ready to get nude, step into your shower and hope that disgusting shower curtain doesn't stick to your body, because hope that disgusting shower curtain doesn't stick to your body.

Because this is the Shower Curtain Episode. I forget that you don't like shower curtains because it gets wrapped around your body somehow. I've had so many shower curtains stuck to me in different motels and hotels and houses. I'm sick of it. And all I can think of is all the other nude bodies that it's stuck to before mine. How long did it take you in America to realize that you're supposed to put the liner inside the tub? Yeah, I flooded a few baths first. Yeah, I got out and I was like,

why is it so wet? That's the big problem with the curtain. Once it's in, it's there to flap around and it grabs onto you. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes, in theory, I know what you're talking about. But in practice, no. I never get like,

this liner's on me and stuck the shower curtain represents the part of america that i still find a mystery like today i took my first trip to the doctors i had a lump i wanted to see what the lump was okay you can't just lightly drop that you have that's not what the story that's a byproduct of the story i've got a lot my point is i had to go to the doctor could Could have been for a sniffly nose. I'm just, I'm stressed out. One thing, it took me a very long time to find. I got insurance, right?

I pay $350 a month for some insurance. It matched me with the doctor. I go to this doctor. It's just a locked door that says, don't come in, call me. I call. He makes me send through my insurance card to him to check. That's going to be a month. I've got this lump. I'm like, I can't wait a month. What if this lump is growing? I don't know what it's doing. I need to get this lump sorted out. So I'm sick of this. So I call up

the insurance company. I say, what are the doctors? This doctor's terrible. He's got the door locked. They send me a list of 95 other random doctors. So I spend the whole day on Google Maps trying to figure out where the doctor is. I don't have a car because I don't have my license yet. So it needs to be close to my house. I'm probably going to be walking there. I don't want to be in an Uber with my big lump. So I finally today make it to the doctor. I set the appointment for 2 p.m. I get there. And in America, apparently you don't see the doctor at 2 p.m. That's your check-in time. I saw the doctor at 2.40 That is too long, sometimes you do have to

wait a long time at the doctor we are not moving past the lump The other thing that annoyed me at the doctor's office was that I had to then fill in three sets of questionnaires with questions like, do you have a gun? That doesn't happen in New Zealand

Why am I checking that box at a doctor's office? You know, it should be about my health. It shouldn't be about my gun ownership. I take no, I don't have any guns. Well, maybe it's a mental health question. And I actually think it's great in America that they're asking people that because we have a gun issue. Okay, that makes sense.

It was like, are you feeling depressed? Are you feeling suicidal? Do you have a gun? I'm like, what? Sinny, you're so naive. My point is. Tell us about your lump. Please.

Where is it? Well, the lump's going down. It's disappearing in size. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where it is. Can I guess where it is? No. No, it doesn't matter.

It's a mystery. Is it in your nose? It's not in my nose. Does my nose Can I guess where it is? No. No, it doesn't matter. It's a mystery. Is it in your nose? It's not in my nose. Does my nose look like it has a lump? No. No, it doesn't. Does my nose look? It looks perfect, but I've just.

Okay, apparently it looks like it's got a big lump on it. No, this is what happens when you don't tell us where the lump. We'll get to it. I'm just a bit. In New Zealand, we don't like talking about how much we earn, and we don't like talking about medical conditions. But listen, you're in America now, and you're trying to become more American.

So you're open about all this stuff. Where's your lump? Doesn't matter. There's been a heat wave in America this week. It's been so stressful. And what I'm saying is that shower curtains represent that part of America that just stresses me out a bit more. When I'm in New Zealand, I'm never having a shower curtain stuck to my body.

And what's the fear underlying having a shower curtain stuck to your body? It's dirty. Mold. Mold. In New Zealand, okay, I have a squeegee in my shower. I hate the idea of there being moisture everywhere because moisture grows mold, right? Mildew. Awful. I'm squeegeeing down all the surfaces in my shower. I go to squeegee the shower curtain, I'm tangled up in it again. What's the goal of squeegeeing down all the surfaces in my shower I go to squeegee the shower curtain I'm tangled up in it again What's the goal of squeegeeing the shower curtain?

Because it's covered in water No, no, no, you do that with a shower door No, exactly I'm so used to it Muscle memory I'm squeegeeing all four walls in the shower Now one of those walls in America is a curtain You can't squeegee it

I find that very frustrating for the social posts for this week you can put a little gopro in your shower absolutely i'll strap it to my forehead yes and then we can get some imagery you might see the lump oh that's a clue oh my god no but i want to see some imagery of you all wrapped up your arm is demonstrate what i go through okay and also i have a small shower and that's the problem but obviously it's normal to you you've got a curtain right i love it do you have a clear one patterns i have the liner is clear did you buy a new one when you moved into your apartment? Oh, absolutely. Or are you using the old one? First thing I did was throw the old one away.

Yes, that's right. My neighbor actually gave me a really beautiful shower curtain. It's really great, but it's still disgusting because it's a shower curtain. Wait. I'm very concerned about this liner. Yeah, hold on. You're supposed to have a curtain and a liner. Uh-oh.

The liner is what's clear and goes in the tub. And then there's a curtain that is outside the tub. What I'm worried about now is because I don't have these two layers, is that why it's getting stuck to me? 100%. No one told me I'm meant to have two layers. It's like people that sleep with a sheet and a duvet. Some people don't have the sheet, they just have the duvet straight on the bod. Yeah, I do that. Awful. You that sleep with a sheet and a duvet. Some people don't have the sheet. They just have the duvet straight on the bod. Yeah, I do that. Awful. You've got to have a sheet for cover.

No, but then you're too hot. Yeah, it is true. You've been sleeping in this heat wave with a sheet and a duvet. Oh, my God. That's why I'm so stressed this week. It's a heat wave. I've got the duvet and the sheet. You're wrapped up in your curtain.

Wrapped up in my curtain. Is the shower curtain that you have, is it plasticky or is it fabric? It's more of a fabric, I'd say. Oh, you've made a huge mistake. The fabric curtain is never supposed to go inside the tub. Oh, that's meant to be flapping on the outside. This mystery plastic layer is meant to be on the inside.

That's right. Oh my God. Oh my God. We don't even need to continue. We just solved your problem. I'm also very tall and gangly and my shower's small so there's not a lot of room for error. If I have to bend over or something, it's all over.

To look at your lump? I've been renting a tiny one-bedroom apartment for the last five months and so I've gotten pretty used to everything except the shower. It's really small. I'm 6'2 and the shower head is at my chest height. I'm always bumping into walls but the main issue is that the shower curtain keeps attacking my body. It's not just happening in my shower. I've lost count of how many shower curtains have brushed against my skin here in America. It's

crazy to me because I come from a land of shower doors. Since the 60s shower doors have pretty much been the norm in New Zealand. To begin my journey to understand America's love of shower curtains I call my old friend Harvey, the toilet expert from the toilet episodes of Flightless Bird. I figure if he knows so much about toilets he might know a thing or two about showers as well. I'm glad Harvey liked our toilet episode. But this is the shower curtain episode. And Harvey says to understand shower culture in America, we must first turn to the British. Our cleanliness tradition really begins with the British.

The British had a zeal for cleanliness vis-a-vis the French. So the French covered up their scents and the British were more likely to scrub. So we have the British to thank for our love of scrubbing up. But before the shower came the bath. The British also bathed and it's still a kind of specialty of the British to bathe compared to Americans and I'll bet you to New Zealanders. Yeah, so you're talking about actually like filling a bath with water and really getting in there. Yes, everybody bathes before showers, but still to this day, my British friends are more likely to take baths than my American friends. Yeah, you don't have many people

bathing in America. I'll occasionally bathe in America and it's almost looked down on. Like, why would you do that? Right, and for good reason, which is that you don't really get clean because you're sitting around dirty water, and it also uses more water and uses up more space than a shower would. We've got a lot of reasons to get rid of the bathtub, but the British are laggards or more traditionalists or whatever, however you want to put it. Does the queen shower? I just don't know. Humans haven't always loved getting wet. During medieval times, far before shower curtains entered the scene, humans were terrified of getting wet, worried water would leak into their body or that their insides would leak out

into the water. There's evidence of rudimentary indoor showering in ancient Egypt, but the Greeks were the first ones to really get amongst it. Back then it was more about socialising than getting clean. Same with the Romans, who embraced bathhouses. And of course the original shower was the waterfall, popularised again in the 90s by TLC. In the western world, showering really kicked off in the latter half of the 20th century. This is because people learned about germs and became increasingly obsessed with hygiene. Suddenly people were showering once, sometimes twice a day. In the average American home now, showers are the third largest uses of water, behind toilets and clothes washers.

Americans shower for an average of 8.2 minutes a session. So more context, which is the sanitation movement, which was headquartered in Britain but affected other parts of the world as well. And this is before really understanding that much about bacteria. But with bacteriological knowledge, it really got going. And so you wanted to have smooth surfaces. Before then, early quasi-toilets were encased in wood with fanciful 19th century carvings. You see fanciful incising and decorative motifs. And the sanitation movement worked against

that. And you get then the smooth surfaces, which you can really clean and appliance design was very strong on that. And this simplification, the shower enclosure as an unbroken interior that can be wiped clean and then the shower door is an improvement on the shower curtain. Another concern I have about the shower curtain is it seems to be a depository for moisture just by the very nature of it. There's water left in there, it gets moldy and that kind of thing. Is that a worry with the shower curtain? Mill do, will do. That's our slogan for the week, yes. But while the shower door may be more hygienic, with less residue and water hanging around, Harvey says the shower curtain has remained in many American homes because it's cheaper. They're usually made from cheap vinyl, cloth, or plastic. Much cheaper than glass. If a shower curtain gets dirty,

you just throw it away and buy another cheap shower curtain. Basically, Harvey points out that my shower door obsession basically means I'm classist. As he puts it, the richer are the ones that have it glassier. I also accused you of this when you first brought up this grievance. You did. I should also note that things have already aged somewhat and the Queen definitely doesn't shower or bath anymore because she's not with us. She's not.

Rest in peace. Rest in peace, Queen Elizabeth. New Zealand wasn't mourning about the Queen for quite some time because we're part of the Commonwealth. Every New Zealand news site is just the Queen. I don't know if America did the same thing or not. There's a lot of posts and a lot of stuff. Anyway, I love the Crown and I love the Queen.

And I think she did a beautiful job. Yeah, I never understood the whole royal family thing. I'm definitely not a royalist, but a lot of people really get into it and good on them if they want to celebrate. You and Dax both, but I am a royal, so I love them. That's cool. Each to their own, as they say. Okay, back to the curtains.

Do you have thoughts on bathing, Monica? Yes. I love baths. I really do it up. I'll do essential oils. I will do the salts, the balms. The bath bomb, classic. I just make it very sudsy. Sometimes I'll do

Epsom salts, but that's not sudsy. That's good for muscles. So you do the salts, then you do children's bubble bath. Hello Bello. Shout out. Okay. David doesn't know it. That's Dax's diaper company. I know. Hello Bello. I'm a big fan.

Okay. So then you make's diaper company. I know. You know, hello Bella. You're a big fan. Okay. So then you make it really nice. I do candles and then I love- Oh, so you're setting a mood. Oh, yeah. Music? Yep, music. You're taking food in there, an orange or something? No, no, no, no, no.

I don't mix sensuality and food. I always eat my citrus in the bath or the shower because it gets all over you and it just washes off. That sounds intense, David. I always take citrus in. Listen to music or a podcast or something. I definitely agree with Harvey that I don't feel clean after. I just feel relaxed. So you'll do a rinse off and a shower afterwards.

And so I've wasted a lot, lot of water, ding, ding, ding, water episode. How do you deal with the temperature dropping? Because you get into that bath. It's nice and warm. It's five minutes later, 10 minutes bath, it's nice and warm. Five minutes later, 10 minutes later, it's tepid. Yeah, you have to put it back on. I also make it scalding when I step in. Yeah, right, you roast in there initially.

I'm pretty uncomfortable for the first little bit. So by the time it's tapered off, it just feels more normal. Every bath I've taken, I love getting in. I love about the first minute. So great. I'm relaxing. That's what life's about, relaxing in a bath. Then about two minutes in, so bored.

Yeah. So bored. I want to get out of there. Things are, like, wrinkling up. That's where you've got to put the bubble bath in. If you catch your, like, wrinkled body while you're in a bath, disgusting. That's where you've got to cover it with a layer of bubbles. Will you tell us the truth? Did you notice the lump while you're in a bath disgusting that's why you've got to cover it with a layer of bubbles will you tell us the truth did you notice the lump while you were taking a bath a shower okay i had one more question and this was a big internet debate that came up a while

ago it's not an original idea but when you're showering some people will soap up their legs and their feet. Other people will just soap up the top half and the trickle off will basically wash the rest of them. This is half, quote, the internet. And this is half armchair expert. Oh, no. No. We started this on a fact check where Dax and I got in a argument about what you wash. Yeah, what bits? I wash my whole body with soap.

Same, for the record. Okay. Absolutely. And Dax does not. He doesn't believe in that. He thinks you only have, well, now we've come to an acronym, PTSD. Okay. Pits, tits, slits, and dicks.

Okay. Yeah, the holes. I also like the soles. Holes and soles. I like that a lot. Yeah. So this is something that's been ongoing. And then we asked Ash and Amila when they came on our show.

Two beautiful people. Great skin. Great skin. It's like, what do you guys do? Do you wash your whole bodies or not? Because this is our longtime debate. Then the internet took this and ran with it and was asking all these celebrities. Oh because this is our long-time debate then the internet took this and ran with it and was asking all these celebrities oh this is so awkward yeah and i feel a little

upset because like no one's giving us credit and no one's giving the specifically the fact check credit and i think it's good to acknowledge this now i've been schooled then it morphed into do wash your kids or something i don't know it morphed but we you wash your kids or something? I don't know. It morphed. But we were the jumping off point. You're right. Although what you're asking is a little bit different. Yeah, I think as a ding, ding, ding with the circumcision episode, the main thing, I got to wash my penis. You got a foreskin?

You got to make sure you're washing that penis. That's right. Which is a very easy thing to do. But that's the key thing. Bum, penis. David, when you were washing your penis, did you find the lump? No, it wasn't found whilst washing the penis. It's not a penis lump.

I don't wash my face with soap. Because whenever I wash my face, I get pimples. My face goes so feral if I ever try and soap it. So I know Dax isn't into a lot of soap. I take that knowledge and apply it to my face. It's its own ecosystem. Okay. And when I'm not soaping it up, I'm not getting pimples into a lot of soap. I take that knowledge and apply it to my face. It's its own ecosystem. Okay. And when I'm not soaping it up, I'm not getting pimples.

My skin's okay. Like it's not the best skin ever, but it seems fine. Yeah, you have nice skin. So that's working for you. But for me, I have to use not just soap, salicylic acid soap, and then lots of serums. See, I wonder about the serums because once you get into that system, it's like if you get into a system of taking vitamins, you just think that you need it and you're sort of having it every day.

I'm not convinced all the layers of soaps and creams and all the things. Do we need them? Yes. But this is probably another episode. That's another episode. American skincare. Terrifying. Write it down.

Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Flightless Bird is brought to you by Athletic Greens, which I say this all the time, but it's made in New Zealand. It's the best place in the world, and I have it every morning. I get my little glass of water out. I mix in my AG1, and it gives me all the vegetables I need for the day that I know I'm not going to be eating because I'm lazy.

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on the water and then you get in and it's like sucking in from the draft and it's touching your leg while you're trying to shower. Ew. Take this ad for the Clingless Curtain Keeper, a product meant to protect us from shower curtains. I was just about to jump in the shower, so I thought now would be the perfect time to test out a new invention we got in called Clingless. Scientists also know exactly what I'm talking about. Hello, this is Professor David Schmidt of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Professors like David Schmidt call it the shower curtain effect, the phenomenon of a shower curtain

being blown inwards towards your naked body while the shower is running. Professor Schmidt wrote a piece for Scientific American about all the competing theories, and to me they seemed more complex than quantum mechanics. In the scientific community, there's endless discussion about shower curtains. Some of them say it's the Bernoulli effect. If you have a narrowing of a channel, as the fluid accelerates to that channel, the pressure drops.

Air flow, pressure inside and outside the shower curtain, and Schmidt's findings about vortexes. I fired up the computer and created a three-dimensional simulation of a bathroom shower. What was interesting is vortices formed with a horizontal axis of rotation. So imagine something like a hurricane, but with the axis horizontal. In the eye of the hurricane, there's, of course, low pressure. And so what these simulations showed is that vortical structures driven by the momentum of the spray tend to pull the curtain inward. While there are many theories about shower curtains and why they stick to us,

I did my bit, but it's probably not the last word. every scientist arrived at the same basic conclusion. Shower curtains are destined to get stuck to our naked bodies, and that's disgusting. How many shower doors do you think you would have installed in your career? Oh gosh. I'm spending the day with Jeanette, who calls herself the glass queen. One of her missions in life is to rid America of shower curtains. She's installed so many shower doors in her career, she's lost count. Wait. You pulled out the phone.

I have to calculate. No, I've probably installed 200,000 shower doors. For real. It's been a lot of years. Right now I'm with her as she replaces a shower curtain with a brand new glass door. curtains and to shower doors. I was kind of born into this business. My dad was a glass man and he started a company in 71 and then I worked there pretty much my whole life and then started Glass Queen in 2005. My apartment was the pretty stuff, the shower enclosures and mirrors and so yeah. Jeanette is just one of a handful of Americans who finds the shower curtain

as mystifying as I do. What is your opinion of shower curtains? They're gross. They just hold a lot of dirt and they get moldy quick. Plus you can't see out. I like the clear glass doors. This is something I love about shower doors. You can see out. I like to see what's going on when I'm in the shower. I like to feel free. My theory is that some Americans like to be hidden away behind their patterned shower curtain. It's weird to me because there's usually a door into the bathroom. So why do you need a curtain to hide behind? People don't want someone on the outside to see them in.

Also was part of it. Plus who's in the bathroom with you really? Do you think there's any situation where a shower curtain is better than a door? No, I think anywhere there's a shower curtain, it could be glass and glass is just so much more sanitary and clean and pretty. What's the worst shower curtain scenario you've ever seen? The one that's been like in an apartment shower for 20 years. I don't know. Some people are not real clean. Why do you think shower curtains are a thing in America? Because in New Zealand, we don't really have them.

People are cheap. I think it's because they're cheap. Plus, I think they have babies. They have like little kids and they think, oh, they can push it over and have access to the tub. But none of it makes sense to me. They're just gross. She does have a point.

They're probably easier for parents and easy to hang around a bath. But if you design your bathroom right, designers would argue you never need the curtain. A cunningly placed piece of glass will deflect water to where it needs to go. And have you traveled much outside of America to see what the situation is with shower curtains

in the rest of the world? Some are so far further along than the US on glass. We're catching up here in America. Finally. It's taken a minute. I think it's that people don't really get the value, but it's just so nice. Glass in the hardware for me is like jewelry in your bathroom.

I think back to what Harvey said, the richer have it glassier. And then something else Harvey said came back to me, a possible reason Americans will forever hold on to the humble shower curtain. It's the fact that more than 85% of American homes have hard water. Water with high mineral content. That can lead to messy build-up on shower doors and shower curtains that many other countries like New Zealand just don't suffer from

because we have soft water. Hard water leaves deposits. It's impossible really to clean. And so you just have to get a new shower curtain. Maybe it's just easier to throw a shower curtain away and get a new one instead of always furiously cleaning your shower door. I mean, who wants to squeegee a glass door every day? It's a miserable existence. And Harvey also threw another idea into the mix, that shower curtains are so deeply embedded in America's psyche, they'll never get rid of them.

The innuendos of shower curtains, of curtains in general, which are big entrances and sites of drama. And in the movie Psycho, wasn't it a shower curtain? It was. In fact, I'd argue the humble shower curtain was the real star of Psycho, a key component of that key shower scene. We all know it, Marion's in the shower, and spoiler alert, Norman Bates creeps in with a knife. If that shower curtain had been a clear shower door, Marion would have been able to see Norman approaching, and she'd still be alive today. And it would have made for a much more boring film. Instead, because of the shower curtain, Psycho is one of the most well-known films of all time, the Library of Congress calling it

culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant, adding it to the official US National Film Registry so it's preserved for all time. It's my theory America likes the drama of a shower curtain, and therefore it's here to stay. Like that scene in Euphoria where Cassie hides in the bath behind a shower curtain. Remove shower curtains and there is no euphoria. There is no psycho. The shower curtain is as American as apple pie, an unofficial part of the constitution.

Remove the shower curtain, and what does america have left the soggy embrace of a wet shower curtain on your naked skin is a reminder that you're american something to be proud of something to embrace as the shower curtain embraces you so yeah i've sort of come around to it. Maybe being American is the embrace of a disgusting shower curtain. Aw, okay. Dax just sent us a text from sitting right next to me. It says, while many Americans are opting for glass bath and shower enclosures,

the past five years have seen more than 2,000, oh boy, trips to the emergency room for injuries caused when those glass doors shattered sometimes spontaneously. So glass doors are potentially killing us. Well, that's true because also if you pass out and you like slam

into the glass door, you'll go through and you'll die. I was in Turkmenistan and I injured myself and went to the hospital. And that's where they dosed me up with ketamine. This was a long time ago. It's a whole different story. The guy in the emergency room next to me, he had opened the shower door and it broke

off in his hands and slit up his other arm. Oh my God. And he had a giant gash from a glass shower door and it really messed him up. So Dax probably in that stat probably has a point. I'm glad Dax texted us that. That's important because safety is really important when you're showering or bathing because a lot of people die that way. I'm sure people have suffocated in one of those plastic shower curtains as well.

I'm sure there's some stats. Maybe if you're a cine, but I don't think otherwise. But also Dax had a big tantrum in the middle of this doc because he said if the woman really installed 200,000 shower doors, she would have been installing a shower door for the last 500 years. So I said that she could have a crew of people. The shower queen has a crew. When I met with her, there was a man. Wouldn't talk to me. I kept putting the mic up to him.

He refused. It was very quiet. Do you think he saw your lump and got pretty anxious about it? The lump isn't visible when I'm clothed. It's under clothes. She was also very speedy. And she also, she wasn't that old. She did have a sense of humor.

So I imagine she was exaggerating the number of doors she'd installed. But she hasn't installed a lot of shower doors. Can I air a grievance? Please. You are mixed messages right now because you like a glass door so you can look out. You like being, quote, free. But in this last episode, you liked tunnels and bunkers and being in confined spaces i'm a complex person so i would say it's when i'm nude i like to see what's going on i don't want to be surprised so if i'm naked i want to know if someone's coming so you're going to startle me so i like to have

that clear glass door so i can see out into the world and see what's going on. I hate the idea of someone sneaking out behind a shower curtain and maybe suddenly whipping it open. Whereas if I'm in my tunnel as a child. Escaping the baddies. Escaping the baddies, then that's not going to be a problem. So clothes on is fine. Doesn't glass fog up? It does fog up, but you can sort of squeegee it away with your hand.

Also in Psycho, she would have been murdered either way. You're going to get murdered either way. No, if she had hit a glass door, she would have seen him approaching and could have potentially defended herself. With what? The bath soap? The glass door. She could hit him in the head with it, sort of push it out into Norman's head and knock him out. Okay. But look, it is more expensive.

They're mad in this documentary that people are cheap. But there's some real truth. Glass is more expensive than a piece of fabric. Totally. And Jeanette generally I think works in homes that probably have a bit more money and have a bit more money to spend. And yeah, some people

can't afford to install a glass door. It's just not going to happen. Many people have glass doors in their primary bath because that's the one where you try to make it the most luxurious and nice. And then they don't want to spend on all the other bathrooms because it's a lot more money. So those will have shower curtains. I have a question. Yes. If you're renting an apartment in America, which is what I'm doing, how many modifications can you make? Can you like whack holes in the wall and do things?

I mean, you can, but you might lose your security deposit. What if you're making it better? That's my thing. So I put wallpaper up. Yeah. And you're enhancing it. I wasn't supposed to, I don't think, but I've made that apartment three and a half times better by adding that wallpaper. Yeah, so that should be fine, right? I think they should pay me back. Yeah, absolutely. So potentially you could pop a glass door in and they might thank you for it. Yeah, but I don't want to spend, you know, it would be a lot.

If you're renting, you don't want to spend on it. Yeah. Yeah, that's the other thing. Okay, we got another text. An average cost to install a frameless shower door is $500 to $3,000, depending on the size of the shower. That's a lot of money. The type and thickness of the glass and the finishes and hardware you choose.

Okay, yeah. So it is a bougie thing, the shower door. I guess I'm just so used to New Zealand. I mean, certainly there'll be shower curtains in New Zealand, but just in general, new houses, new builds, they just always have the glass door. Can I say, I feel pretty bad for Dax right now, because he wants to talk so bad. It's such a confusing thing for listeners. The main message I get from people

is, what is going on? Why can't Dax talk? Like, what's happening? There's conspiracies around it. There's a lot going on. We love conspiracies Also it creates chaos for our poor editor Editing these episodes together Because Dax says wonderful things He says wonderful things Now he's moved on to texting us

But anyway Okay I was just in France And I stayed at Le Hotel Yes the first Nope he wants to talk so bad and I stayed at Le Hotel. Ooh la la. Yes. The first, nope. He wants to talk so bad. The first boutique hotel in the whole world.

The first one. Yes, very exciting. The first boutique hotel. Yes. And it's gorgeous. Why are you laughing? I just don't quite believe it. We are the first boutique.

Are you sure? It's beautiful and wonderful. And it had a shower curtain and i thought of you and how was it that shower is teeny tiny so you are kind of up against the curtain also you encountered a little bit probably of what my apartment's like where it's just super how small is your shower it's so small i I'll do a GoPro thing and post it up. It's tiny. It's cute, but it's small. Are you hitting the sides and stuff with your arms? All the time. I'm bouncing around. Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. It's crazy in there. I think maybe we need to get you a new apartment. First things first. But yeah, so it was up against

me and I thought, oh yeah, it did, but I wasn't grossed out because I was like this is a nice hotel I bet they cleaned it am I being naive they normally have the button it's a liner and curtain in one and like halfway there's buttons so you can

unbutton it and wash it leaves the top I've never seen that, ever. Rob, you know so much about shower curtains. Wait, wait. I should have interviewed you for this. A lot of hotels have that. I've never seen it.

Also, did you see the secret at Le Hotel? Yeah. My friend stayed there. What are you talking about? Oh, now you have a friend who stayed there. You're all deranged. She told me after she heard our episode. Oh, okay.

There's a secret pool in the basement. They told me. I didn't go You can privately go skinny dip Yeah, they said I could book it for an hour But I didn't You two should Honestly, get in the ocean I should also want to add

When I stayed at the Cecil Hotel When I drank that water They had a shower curtain And it touched me as well. Oh my God, that girl's body touched you. Oh, I was showered with it. Exactly. I was just thinking of the shower curtain touching me.

But yeah, of course, the water. You drank her and you showered in her. I find you stay at sort of a three star mark and you usually get an experience. You'll come away with a story. Okay, can we just tell people a really nice thing that happened? When you went to check out your lump, you sent me a screen grab. It was about something else. But on the paper, you had wrote me down as your emergency contact. Yeah. Monica Padman. And I put your number in there. And did you write down what I looked like next to it?

Because you're used to reminding people. I couldn't think of what you look like when I wrote down your name, but I knew I knew you. I knew I was going to be coming to record with you soon. So yeah, you're my emergency contact. So if that lump kills me, they'll call you and you can find out all about it direct from the doctor. Alright, that's cool. Are you okay with that? I don't know, like emergency contacts. I've never been called as someone's, I don't know. Do people use them? Well, no one's luckily called me, but it's very flattering.

It's a thing to put someone down as your emergency contact. I feel like I have trust in you. You're always so helpful and nice to me. And I just feel like I can trust you. So the opposite of if I put Rob down or something, that would be horrific. Yeah. He would sneak up on you. He wouldn't even come to claim the body. you so the opposite of if i put rob down or something that would be horrific yeah he would he wouldn't even come to claim the body he'd probably like dress the body up and then put it

in this he'd make a joke and then they take it as real you're the first person that popped into my mind so down the monica pad it makes me feel like i'm a reliable friend you're really reliable i think that when i'm writing i like sit there for minutes deciding who to write down. Do you change it up every time? Sometimes. I always used to put my mom and I even put my mom when I live here. At some point that sounded very stupid. I was like, if someone needs to come right now, what is my mom going to do in Georgia? I always give my Dan a lot of stick because he missed a flight to the airport. I feel like he was in his 20s or 30s or something. And the first person he calls was his mom.

It's just the funniest thing in the world. And he knew it was ridiculous to do it as well. But it's so funny, isn't it? The parental thing where you're just like, okay, mom, dad. Don't take care of me somehow. Why am I doing this still? All right. Well, anyway, I just thought we should end on that because that's a big feather in my cap.

Yeah, thank you. Well, look, shower curtains and doors, we've all learned something. And I'm just going to embrace the reality that I live in a country with a lot of curtains. And I'm just going to try and get used to that. I think they're going to grow on you. And you're going to, by the end of the year, well, first of all, you're going to have two. You're going to fix your problem. I'm going to have the internal're going to have two. You're going to fix your problem. I'm going to have the internal one and the external one.

You're going to have the liner. Yes. And no lump.