Bucket Head

I washed my hair in a bucket tonight. The funny thing is I’m not living in a third world country right now but in America’s heartland. It’s a long story. I’ll spare you the long drawn out details. The heart of the story is: my lease ran out last month, I’d arranged to move into an apartment that my dad has been renovating, plans changed so he had to stop working on the apartment and switch to a higher priority project which will take him about another month. My stuff and I had very limited options. I lived at my parents house for a week, but that didn’t work out very well for a variety of reasons, so I decided to just move into the apartment ready or not.

The apartment is on the second floor of a hundred year old building. After you climb 23 steps, it’s on the left. Three eight foot windows over look main street and face the railroad tracks. The first night I slept here I found that, yes, the train does go by at three in the morning.

But, back to the bucket experience. I’m determined to meet the challenges of  living in a half finished building. It’s an odd combination high speed internet: check (shared by the three surrounding  buildings) electricity: partially—a string of temporary lights running on an electrical cord which comes out of the floor, plumbing: partially—a bucket flush toilet and a tub but no running water. So, I got a half filled bucket of water, a mug, my shampoo, and set to work. The water was very cold. I got conditioner in my eyes, and the hardest part was making sure my hair was fully rinsed. Once I was done, I realized my towels are still packed in a box, but fortunately I had my hair cut fairly short recently, so my extra wash cloth worked pretty well.