Sarahquarium

Living on the top floor of a house as I do, I have a fair amount of privacy. 

From my Rapunzel perch I have little fear of being spotted doing those things that just have to get done in the course of my day, such as prancing about and belting out Regina Spector tunes in my underwear and muppet fur slippers or eating bizarre and disgusting-to-others food combinations.
 And despite there being no curtains in my bathroom window, which is directly in front of my clear glassed-in, shower, the frosted glass on the bottom half of the window does a perfectly adequate job of protecting my modesty.

So last Tuesday when I stayed home sick from work, I felt perfectly comfortable lounging around in my jammies, ignoring the dishes and the mess of watercolours in my living room, secure in the knowledge that I was invisible to the outside world. 

Eventually I figured if I wasn't going to shower, I could at the very least, get some laundry done. This meant dumping out the contents of not one, but two large hampers chock full of my dirty clothes onto my living room floor/couch/coffee table. No sooner had I transformed my livingroom into the great Pacific Garbage patch of clothing than the doorbell rang. 

Thinking it was probably the food fairies downstairs, eager to show me a rainbow, or a white squirrel or the latest and greatest in pet coffins (that's right, they now make pet coffins in the basement), I sighed, zipped up my food-stained hoodie, and shuffled downstairs to answer. It wouldn't be the first time they'd seen me looking like I just rolled out of bed, or off of the mammoth hair rug in my cave.  

However, I was dismayed to discover upon opening the door...some guy. He blinked at me for a second before saying, "Um, you're getting work done on your roof?" 

I tried to appear friendly and coherent instead of completely nonplussed. "Oh, ah, yes? I think my landlord might have mentioned something about that. If you go around to the side door, the neighbours probably know more about it than I do." 
He quickly clarified that he just wanted to let me know there might be people on my roof. 

I mumbled something like "Oh, right, great, thanks." before turning and bounding back up the stairs, whipping off the hoodie as I went, thinking I'd do a quick change and tidy up the laundry hurricane aftermath before the roofers had a chance to climb up and peer into my second floor aquarium. 

Too late. Apparently by "There might be," he meant, there are. Currently. And by "people" he meant several large men. So after doing a comically speedy about-face, I spent the next hour or so held hostage in my own hallway.

I had just about forgotten the entire incident until a couple of days ago. I had just stripped down and positioned myself under the faucet for my morning waternap or "shower." I turned around to sleepily blink at the nearby treetops and found myself looking at a human head. A human head which was attached to a human man in a hard hat and a bucket that was rapidly lifting him up to Sarah shower level.

Fortunately as far as I could tell, he didn't look my way as I furtively finished my shower and leapt into my bathrobe. Although, it almost would have been worth it to see the expression on his face. Almost.

Anyway, as a result of all this, you can add one more quirky behaviour to that list of things I do alone in my apartment: showering in my swimsuit.