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Front Page · Home Desk

Man Rehearses Devastating Comeback In Shower, Water Company Correctly Calls It Wasteful

The real meeting lasted four minutes. None of the rehearsed lines got used.

By A Correspondent Who Has Also Rehearsed This One, Badly · Filed Under: Arguments Never Had

The bathroom mirror, fogged, photographed Wednesday morning. A patch of tile by the shower head is visibly duller than the rest; nobody was in frame to explain why.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, the shower runs for forty minutes; he is not washing anything. He is arguing with Dennis from Procurement, out loud, and winning, every single time.

Your usage pattern is inconsistent with expected hygiene outcomes.

The lines are precise, rehearsed in order, delivered at a volume meant for an audience. He has practiced the pause, the killer line, and a face meant for the tile.

Nearly everyone rehearses an argument alone, usually in a car or a kitchen. Fewer do it at full volume, fist-pumping at the tile, magnificent and completely unwitnessed.

Winning has a physical side effect he has never mentioned, least of all to Dennis. He masturbates, standing there, victorious, before the water even starts to cool.

A second, much shorter shower follows immediately after, this one for actual dirt.

The building's water heater reports its usage to an app the landlord calls an efficiency partner. The app does not know about Dennis, and would not believe it if it did. It knows that one account draws hot water for forty minutes, twice a week, guilty of something unproven.

Last month the account received a Behavioural Efficiency Notice, recommending a six-minute shower profile. It attached a graph, and the graph called Tuesdays and Thursdays a pattern of concern.

"Your usage pattern is inconsistent with expected hygiene outcomes," the notice read. It was the only line in the whole report that turned out to be true.

Every flagged account shows the identical two-night spike, according to the utility's own internal review. The utility has quietly started a separate list, for accounts it suspects of arguing back. The same review flagged the patch of worn tile, and called it consistent with repeated celebration.

The real meeting happened on a Wednesday, over coffee, and lasted four minutes in total. He used none of the lines he had spent two months perfecting in the shower. Dennis mentioned, before the coffee arrived, his own account had been flagged the same week.

This utility advertises on our back page, and has done so since spring. Last year's ad sold a waterproof speaker, marketed for "talking things through." We ran it twice, and never once asked why.

Tomorrow’s Forecast

National Regret Expected To Peak Sunday Morning, Recovery Slower Near Brunch Venues

Regret is forecast to build steadily from Friday night, reaching a national high around nine, driven by rounds nobody remembers agreeing to buy.

Coastal areas should expect heavier remorse, linked to a wedding season now in its ninth consecutive weekend. Inland, the forecast is milder, mostly limited to one unexplained receipt.

Outlook: Clear skies, one shirt already sweated through at the card machine, one card declined at the till.

Classifieds

  • FOR SALE: One (1) knee, retired years ago after one ill-advised dance at a colleague's leaving party. Still tells the story to anyone who sits still long enough.
  • WANTED: A reason to tell people I only had two.
  • SERVICES: Financial advice from a man who buys a round he cannot afford, on principle, every time.
  • LOST: The ability to fall asleep before midnight. Last seen in my twenties. No reward; would not recognise it anyway.

Corrections

  • An earlier edition described the utility's notice as "a helpful reminder." It was not helpful, and it was not a reminder, since nobody involved had forgotten anything.
  • We reported that the family group chat was "thriving." It has not thrived since 2023. One member still checks it daily. The rest muted it that year and have not told him.

Letters to the Editor

"Your paper claims the average round costs more than people think. Mine does not, because I have not bought one since the Euros, for entirely unrelated reasons."

— For Unrelated Reasons, 44

"Your paper claims adult children call their parents every week. I do. My mother has started screening the calls. She says she is busy. She has not worked in years."

— Still Calling, 39