Media Missionary Focus

Could You Super-Size My Bathroom With That?

Whenever I’m in the States these days I tend to find surprising things bothering me. It’s always something different. There are lots of things you expect to be bothered by, and because you expect them they don’t bother you as much. In this category you will find things like church / Christian attitudes, news / society bias, etc.

But there have been plenty of annoying things this time that I didn’t expect. Previously I mentioned the time the sun set in North Dakota in the summer (10:30 PM! In Cambodia the sun goes down between 6:00 and 6:30 PM all year long). But today I have a new one.

It hit me yesterday when I was in the shower (I know some of you are already thinking “that’s too much information!” Sorry). First, I freeze here, especially at night. Day time isn’t bad as long as it’s a nice day, but at night it gets colder than it ever gets in Cambodia, so I’m huddled down under the covers, and in the morning I can’t wait to get into a nice hot shower (something I almost never have in Cambodia (I’m referring here to the “hot” part; I do take regular showers). So Yesterday I’m in the shower, and I guess up until then I had just been so happy to be warm that I hadn’t noticed the other problem; the shower was really small. Or at least it deemed to be. I have been in plenty of smaller ones, but they were all in the States. Either it’s a bathtub with a curtain that drifts in to stick up against your side when you have shampoo in your eyes, or it’s a stand up shower stall that is small enough that if you bend over too quickly you will hit your head on the wall in front of you and your rear end on the wall behind you. In the past this never seemed to bother me, but this time I suddenly find myself annoyed by it. Why? Because in Cambodia the shower is basically the entire bathroom! They tile the whole thing, stick a drain in the floor and a shower head on the wall, and there you have your shower. Lots of room and no mysteriously drifting plastic shower curtains!

Isn’t America the land of Super-Sizing? I’m sitting in a HUGE church, drinking a VENTI coffee from Starbucks, and typing this posting on a notebook computer with a 17 inch screen! So why can’t we get a decent size shower? And don’t even get me started on the subject of fixed American shower heads verses Cambodian shower heads attached to hoses you can move around and direct, or low American ceilings versus high and spacious Cambodian ceilings!

Some of you are probably thinking “Maybe Troy has had a bit too much of the Starbucks coffee he has talking about.” OK, maybe… But I’m just trying to point out that the things that are sneaking up to annoy missionaries who are home in the States aren’t always the things you might expect. Sometimes they are; missionaries do struggle with attitudes and issues that are serious and important, but usually they expect that. It’s the little things that you don’t expect.

So perhaps if McDonalds went into the home construction business we could solve this pesky little shower problem; “With that bathroom do you want a regular size shower, or do you want to Super-Size?” I’ll take Super-Size, thank you.

posted by Troy In Cambodia @ 10:32 PM