A tennis friend and I were recently talking before a tennis match about a second tennis friend who had slipped and hurt her knee and therefore was out for the rest of the season.

The version of the story I heard was that Tennis Friend #2 had slipped on some wet tile. Naturally I assumed she had been in the shower when the slip occurred, so when Tennis Friend #1 and I were catching up on that news, the conversation turned – as conversations about slippery tennis friends prior to tennis matches do – into a regular funniest-shower-slipping-stories-we’ve-ever-heard laugh riot.

Her story involved her sister and some screaming and thumping noises. By the time she got into the bathroom to see what had happened, her sister had a broken toe or tooth (I forget which) and she was all tangled up in the shower curtain, the rod of which she had completely ripped out of the wall.

That primed the pump a bit and we were laughing like loons by the time I trotted out my story involving my freshmen roommate. I was IN the shower with her at the time her slip happened so I bore witness to the whole shebang.

Hey! Hey, CREEP!  Creepy, creeper.  Eyes up here, ‘cause it wasn’t like THAT.  So before you go THERE with THAT, I’ll tell you that the showers in my freshman dorm consisted of like a 6 foot by 10 foot tiled room with four shower heads – two on each side of the wall.  That’s it.  No partitions.  No curtains.  Nuthin’ except a few inch lip which separated the showers from the rest of the bathroom.  I don’t think there was even a place to put your soap and shampoo since I remember a lot of crouching to grab stuff off the floor.  I also remember a lot of stretching and bending because there wasn’t any place to put your legs when you were shaving, except up on the wall.  Unless you chose to bend over to shave instead (with your backside strategically placed in the corner).  Gaah!  Talk about a total lack of privacy.  And in retrospect, there may even have been SIX shower heads – THREE on each side.  Grrrph.  That’s even worse.  Completely awful.  [Shudder.]  But six shower heads seems right because there was a lot of having to walk past what seemed like rows of naked women so that you could get to the shower head in the corner which had recently been vacated – excuse me, oops, sorry – because it’s not like you could ask everyone to “move down one” so that you could be closest to the escape hatch…er…lip.  Ugh, blaaaaach!!!

Ok, here we go.

But first, may I remind you that slipping in the shower is no laughing matter…

My roommate and I were in the shower. She finished before me and was carefully stepping over the lip of the shower when allofasudden she was lying sideways with her legs inside the shower and her upper torso bent up and over the lip outside the shower.  It was the funniest HowDoYouDo I’d ever seen.  And?  She was MAD.  Really, really pissed off.  So despite her, “Yeah, I’m sure that looked funny.  Go ahead and laugh.”  I got the sense she didn’t really want me to laugh.  So I stifled my giggles and tried to help her up.  But remember she’s naked and slippery.  And I’M naked and slippery.  It’s a lot like helping someone stand up who fell while ice skating: I’m worried she may drag me down with her.  Further, I don’t want to accidentally touch…anything…so I’m mostly just using my words to encourage her to get up.

Eventually she exits stage left even; limping and carrying her toiletries bucket while I spend the next ten minutes huddled under a stream of water, shoulders shaking trying to control the belly laughs that keep coming. This is no one’s cutest look.

Turns out frosh roomie had to go to the infirmary because she really bunged up her leg. There were crutches and everything.  To preserve everyone’s dignity we both told the rest of the girls on the hall that she got hit by a car in the crosswalk.

Now, carry on with your week-end. Try; try with all your might to get the visual of college girls in the shower out of your head.

By the way, it turns out Tennis Friend #2 didn’t even slip in the shower.  When Tennis Friend #1 and I were able to get ourselves under control from our hardy, har, har fest, we sought clarification from our team captain.  Tennis Friend #2’s knee injury had NOTHING to do with the shower.

So I’m not even sure why you brought the whole shower thing up.  Also?  Slipping in the shower is no laughing matter.