Baths are gross and it's time we revolt.

Welcome, reader friends.

I would like to address our society’s greatest abomination: baths.

Now I understand baths have been around for thousands of years. They’ve been adored by everyone from the Romans, to the Egyptians, and my 54-year-old mother, Vicky.

“Baths are the best!” the fanatics insist while looking like smug, wrinkly leather couches. “Look how relaxed we are!”

I feel it must be said that all these people are wrong, and it’s time they realised just how ridiculous their claims are.

Why? Because baths are a conspiracy.

Here’s how the usual bath goes:

• Wait approximately 21 years, 11 hours, and 57 minutes for the bath to fill up.
• During this time, stand naked in front of bathroom mirror, chastising self for previous life decisions (i.e. “why have I still not gotten a gym membership?”; “why did I eat four-day old Thai food for lunch?”; “why did I let that girl from the pub bathroom ‘borrow’ my last hair elastic?”)
• Put foot in bath to test water.
• Experience searing heat pain. Consider amputating foot. Do awkward jiggle dance to regain composure. Turn on “cold” tap.
• Wait another 12 years, seven hours and 16 minutes to perfect temperature.
• Dissolve $40 bath bomb (a Kris Kringle gift from two years ago). Take photo for Instagram but also feel basic and frustrated that this is my life now. Upload photo. Get 11 likes and feel crippling sense of inadequacy. Delete photo.
• Slowly, cautiously, slide into tub. Awkwardly angle head to rest on ‘bath pillow’. Consider the ‘bath pillow’ to be a torture device.
• Go to tie up hair. Have flashbacks of giving away last hair elastic to strange girl in pub bathroom again. Accept fate of damp hair.
• Feel glitter from bath bomb creep into places glitter does not belong.
• Patiently wait to be relaxed and serene. Think about massive pile of washing on bed that has not yet been washed.
• Realise phone is out of reach.
• Realise book is next to phone.
• Realise shower is next to bath and would have been a much better option.
• Realise staring at the bathroom ceiling is both A) boring and B) disconcerting because C) there is black mould up there.

• Realise self is neurotic. Close eyes to experience pleasure and do this mindfulness bullshit Janine in HR keeps talking about.
• Feel one minute and 11 seconds of relaxation before bath water becomes too cold again.
• Turn on “hot” tap. Touch the lukewarm water that is gushing out.
• Contemplate fate of spending a further 20 minutes in a pool of tepid, mediocre, glittery water that is really just decoration for one’s own filth.
• Watch a short hair float by that does not resemble the ones on own body.
• Wonder if hair is rogue pube.
• Wonder if rogue pube belongs to someone else.
• Remember that existential crises about rogue pubic hairs never happen in the shower.
• Jump out of bath.
• Jump into shower.
• Decide the Romans and my mum Vicky were lying to us all.

For more bathroom-related commentary (jks), follow Michelle Andrews on Facebook.