…I think I just killed my husband… with a bathtub…
I came very close to speaking those words several years ago, and yes, you did read that first sentence correctly. ‘With’; not ‘in’. After all, killing one’s husband in a bathtub is practically a cliché, and you know I’d never stoop to that.
When we bought our house, the upstairs bathroom had a ‘cultured marble’ (read ‘concrete finished to look like marble’) jetted tub. If we didn’t remember to run the jets frequently it spat stinking gouts of slime because there was no way to drain the stagnant water from the lines. It was ugly, as cold as stone (go figure) and poorly insulated on an exterior wall. In winter my ass froze on the bottom of the tub no matter how hot the water was.
It had to go.
Our plumber friend surveyed it and advised, “That thing probably weighs nearly two hundred pounds. Break it up with a sledgehammer and take it out in pieces.” (Gary, if you’re reading this: We should have listened to you.)
We didn’t, of course.
No; the tub was in good shape. Somebody else might be able to use it. It must be salvaged!
We’re both strong, so removing it wasn’t too difficult. We extricated it from the bathroom with a modicum of sweat and profanity and lugged it to the top of the stairs. There we balanced it precariously overhanging the stairs, and I went down to support it from below while Hubby held it from the landing above.
I eyed the teetering monstrosity looming over me and said, “I think we should wait until after lunch to do this. My blood sugar is low and I don’t know if I can hold this thing.”
And Hubby said, “That’s okay, I’ll take the bottom and you can take the top.”
We swapped positions and I quavered, “I think we might be solving the wrong problem here…”
And we were. Oh, yes, we were.
Have I mentioned that cultured marble is slippery?
As soon as the tub tipped past its centre of balance, it wrenched out of my grasp. I had only enough time to yelp, “I can’t hold it!” before it hurtled down the stairs like a murderous toboggan with Hubby underneath it.
The lower landing sported an oak railing and (luckily) a 90-degree bend in the stairs.
The tub hit the landing and slammed into the railing. The railing let out a hellish crack and tore loose from the wall but miraculously held at a crazy angle, barely preventing the tub from shooting over the edge and plunging through the living room floor below.
Frozen, I gaped down at the scene of the crime: The tub (still in one piece); the broken railing; Hubby squished underneath.
And I thought, “Shit, I just killed my husband with a bathtub.”
I hadn’t, fortunately. He was smart enough to let it carry him down instead of trying to stop it, so he escaped with only a few minor bruises. After I’d eaten some lunch and stopped shaking, we anticlimactically carried it down the remaining stairs, and we did eventually sell it.
But I’ll never forget the horror of those few moments.
Any bulldozing bathtubs of doom in your family tales?
Author Diane Henders 