Don’t you hate the expression, “At the end of the day”?
It should only refer to that agreeable time when the daylight hours are winding down; the sun is setting, a drink would go down pretty well, it’s time for dinner soon, wonder what’s on the telly, etc.
Instead, A.T.E.O.T.D. (I can’t bring myself to keep spelling it out) is being used as a wordier equivalent of “All things considered” or “Taking everything into account”. In fact it’s being overused, usually by those among us – not you or me of course – who tend to talk in endless clichés. I suspect people sometimes use it as a substitute for taking a deep breath.
Give it a rest, I say.
All of which came to mind when I saw something that Canadian author Margaret Atwood had jotted down: “In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”
Hey Maggie, not just in spring! (Perhaps where she lives spring and summer are the only times the ground isn’t frozen and you can actually get at the dirt.)
She’s right though. There is nothing like getting down and dirty, even if you do end up smelling a bit woofy, because A.T.E.O.T.D. you have a shower to look forward to.
At our place that used to mean getting the old bucket with the shower rose soldered on the bottom, filling it with water we’d heated over the fire, hoisting it on a rope and pulley in the laundry, getting underneath and half-opening the rose, after which you had two minutes at the most to scrub like crazy then wash off the soap, and the shampoo if you were really quick.
Later we graduated to running hot water, but now, well, it’s time to go a bit primitive again. Dear wife reckons that tendency is never far from the surface with me, but this is an exciting development. I’m setting up an outdoor shower. It will be against the east side of the little studio we built in the vegie garden two years ago; I’ve laid a couple of square metres of smooth river stones to stand on, and fashioned towel and clothes racks out of driftwood. The taps and showerhead will be mounted on a big old smooth railway sleeper, also from the creek, which I’ve cemented end-on into the ground.
While we’re quoting people, I like Jerry Seinfeld’s comment: “Somebody just gave me a shower radio. Thanks a lot. Do you really want music in the shower? I guess there's no better place to dance than a slick surface next to a glass door.”
There’s something liberating about getting all nuded up
Well there won’t be any shower radio, slick surfaces, or glass door for me. Or privacy screens either.
It’ll just be a place where a bloke can lazily soap up with hot and cold water while taking in sweeping views of the valley below, all the while being seen only by kangaroos and birds and the occasional startled guest. (Dear wife remarked on the dangers posed by standing out there in the buff when there are hungry kookaburras about, and I acknowledged their fondness for snakes, but she rather cruelly pointed out they are fond of grubs too.)
I can’t wait. There’s something liberating about getting all nuded up in the great outdoors, not unlike skinny-dipping I suppose. Admittedly it will lose some of its appeal come winter, but at the end of the day our new shower is where I’ll be heading to get it all off. Perhaps at the start of the day too.
