Well, the jury is still out. Not on the Sharks vs. Jets question — because the world has spoken, and has decided I would make a very effective Shark (I am actually relieved I do not have to be a Jet. The Sharks are much spicier and better-looking.)* — but on the issue of whether or not I actually enjoy baths.
You will recall that I took a bath last week after a particularly grueling Pilates session. I did not intend to follow up on the aftermath of the bath, but after taking another one just this week, I felt compelled to memorialize the experience here on the World Wide Web in case my biographers ever have a reason to wonder, decades from now, “What year was it that she took two baths in the span of two weeks?” and also to help me make one of the most important decisions of my life.
So here’s the deal: I don’t know if I dig baths. Now, I know you’re all atwitter. You’re thinking, “What? I thought you’d be the kind of girl who loves baths. By candlelight. The sort of girl who pins her hair up into a carefully casual French twist with tendrils at the nape of her swan-like neck, and who sips fizzy pink champagne while luxuriating in steamy pink bubbles, one leg elegantly breaking the surface, extended toward the ceiling, its toes perfectly pedicured and pointed with ballerina precision!” Well … no.
Before taking these two recent baths, I hadn’t taken one in years. Indeed, if you’d asked me, in a man on the street interview or an internet poll if I preferred baths or showers, I would have said, “Showers. Who the flock wants to soak in a basin of her own filth?” and then run away crying and in pursuit of a pocketful of kittens. Both recent experiences with baths were pretty much the same:

• I eased myself into the tub as it was still filling with hot hot water and making pretty pretty bubbles.
• I allowed a self-conscious “Mmmm” to escape my lips.
• Upon sinking beneath the ever-increasing bubblage, I thought, all dreamy-like, “Oh, I could get used to this”, and was intensely aware that I scripted that reaction before even getting into the tub.
• Thirty seconds later, I sighed a sigh not of relaxation but of exasperation and thought, “OK, so now what?” and started wondering how long I had to stay in the tub in order for the experience to qualify as a bona fide bubble bath.
• For the next ten minutes, I amused myself by creating oddly pointy bubble tits on my chest and fashioning a gigantic bubble dick (erect, natch) between my legs.
• For the next ten minutes, I slit my wrists (vertically, up the arm, for more satisfactory results) and noticed that, yeah, all that blood really does feel like warm water, and hey, neat, it makes the bubbles pink!
• The entire time I whined, inside my head, “OK, can I come out now?”

And then ruined any residual bath-thrill by taking a shower anyway to get the bubbles and blood off.
I am not abandoning ship (or tub) yet, though. I plan to incorporate other activities into the bath experience — reading, hand-washing my delicates (I mean lingerie, boys, not my delicates!), giving birth … all things I enjoy doing while I shower — in order to see if I can understand what the big deal is with baths and why so many people seem to think they’re the bee’s knees.
But as it stands now, my bubble, insofar as baths are concerned, is burst.
* As of this writing, the Sharks won (54%, 30 of 56 votes). Although I cannot actually close the poll, I can officially close it. So don’t go running over there and clicking on “Jets” all afternoon to skew the results. I’m a Shark, and ain’t no one gonna change that.