The Shower

The teenage son of a mad scientist accidentally activates a new invention.

My dad is a scientist. Not one of those important ones who cures cancer or improves space shuttle designs. He just puts on a white lab coat and fiddles around in the basement.

 

Sometimes the rest of the family gets pulled into Dad’s crazy schemes. Just yesterday, he accidentally shrunk my brother and me down to two inches. He didn’t have time to build a growth ray before Mom came home so he shrunk down the rest of the universe accordingly.

 

We’re also pretty sure that he reanimated the corpse of our dead beagle Freddy. I say pretty sure because angry villagers burned down the doghouse before we could check it out.

 

Normally, this kind of stuff isn’t a big deal. I mean, everybody’s got their quirks, you know? But sometimes, it’s too much.

 

Like last week, for instance. I finally got the stones to ask out Jamie Byers, and she said yes! It was great. I felt like a million bucks. Course, the asking is the easy part. Dates are always big bundles of nerves for me. I asked her out during third period, and for the rest of the day, I was a sweaty mess.

 

No way I could take her to Potbelly in my condition! As soon as the last bell rang, I booked it home to take a shower. Dinner wasn’t for a few hours, but I needed plenty of time to psyche myself up.

 

I toss my clothes in the hamper and step in the shower. We’ve got one of those phone booth showers. Some people have a curtain over the bathtub, but that kind of thing is no good after you see Psycho.

 

I turn hot water on all the way with a little bit of cold water to balance it out. I use some body wash, but mainly I just soak and think about my game plan.

 

That’s when I see it. Right on the wall is a horizontal strip loaded with buttons and knobs. There’s a digital readout, but I can’t make it out �" it’s fogged over from the shower’s steam.

 

Here’s where I screw up. Right here. Cause see, I thought that Dad must have installed a radio. I started fiddling with the doodads, trying to tune in to a good station. I wasn’t going to sing along or anything, but I mighta done some air guitar.

 

No luck with music, but all of a sudden, the water shuts off. I get kinda mad and start banging on the shower head. No good. Well, I think, I’ve been in here for about twenty minutes. That should do it.

 

I open the shower door and step out onto grass. There are trees all around me, and I hear weird animal chirping.

 

This surprises me a little bit.

 

Here I am, standing in the middle of a freakin’ rainforest in my birthday suit. I mean, it’d be one thing if I had a cell phone or at the very least underwear. I couldn’t be more vulnerable and exposed.

 

With one hand covering my nether regions, I cup my other hand to my mouth and start calling for help. I pray it won’t be a girl who rescues me �" I don’t care if she’s eighty-three and toothless, I do not need any girls seeing me right now.

 

Then I start hearing this rustling sound in some nearby bushes. I don’t have any shoes on so I don’t really want to go traipsing around. Genius me, I throw a rock at it.

 

BOOM! A monster pops out and runs right for me. It kinda looks like something out of Jurassic Park except it’s covered in feathers. But believe me, it’s a thousand times as frightening.

 

I fall backward into the shower and pull the door shut. The monster slams into the shower and knocks it over. Now I’m flat on my back watching in terror as the killer chicken pounds on the glass.

 

Amazingly, it holds. When Dad tricks out a shower, he really covers his bases. 

 

Suddenly, the creature catches sight of something and scurries away. I try to open the shower door to take a look, but it’s jammed shut. I can hear the thud of approaching footsteps, and I hope it doesn’t step on me, whatever it is.

 

Then I hear a bloodcurdling roar. No mistaking that. Panic sets in as I try to imagine what Godzilla’s grandpa looks like.

 

Thankfully, I finally remember that control gizmo that I was fiddling with. Despite the humidity in the air, the digital readout is a lot clearer. It says, “-73000000 years.”

 

I’m not exactly the brightest bulb in the light bulb factory, but it doesn’t take too long before things start making sense. I mean, I’m sure you get it too. No need to spell it out, right?

 

By now, the behemoth is getting a lot closer. The footsteps are setting off vibrations that send me into the air. One of the bounces is so hard that I dislodge the shower door. I poke my head out and see...it. 

 

And it sees me.

 

I enclose myself in the shower and reach for the controls. The thudding is getting louder and the vibrations are getting harder, but I manage to spin the knob in the other direction until the read-out says, “0 years.” That should’ve solved everything. Returned me to my point of departure so I could get back to my date.

 

I swear, I hear a big mouth opening outside.

 

I close my eyes, count to ten and open ‘em. And I’m back in my house! I even try the water, and it works! I accidentally turn on the cold water, though. I yelp and burst out of the shower.

 

I charge headlong into myself. Turns out, I came back a little too early. Whoops.

 

Anyway, that’s how I got a brother.