For a moment there, it felt like the Bates Motel

I was just showering and had the ever lovin’ snot scared out of me- by myself.  And my shower caddy.

So, you know how it is.  Your mind is elsewhere while you autopilot through mundane daily activities.  I finish my routine and I turn my back to my shower caddy (it’s one of those vertical tension rod numbers that stands in the corner of your shower) to shut off the water when suddenly I feel and half see the shower curtain yanked back and sense something swish past my back.  In the initial microsecond of sensing this I think: Leif and a practical joke.  But in the second microsecond my consciousness awakens, realizes I’m not at the farm or in my beloved house of yore; I’m in the bathroom at the house where I’m staying in the Big City.  Leif is not here.  There’s a psycho prowler in the house!

I scream like, well, Janet Leigh in Psycho.

Then through my scream I hear a crash and finally see the shower caddy which fell and threw open the curtain.

My heart racing, relief flooding through me, I laugh and then embarrassment washes over me as I remember I have 5 basically strangers living upstairs.  I go silent, listening.  I wait.  Nope, I don’t hear anyone upstairs running about or yelling back to be quiet.

I can’t quite decide now if I should feel relieved that I didn’t have to explain why I was shrieking in the shower at 6:30 in the morning, or a bit miffed that I could be stabbed to death while all the guys upstairs slept like the dead.

I also wonder how long my throat will stay raw from that scream….

More fun than a barrel of static friction

In physics we are “studying” friction.  Or at least other people are studying it, I’m trying to survive it.  But, I have it on good authority that static fiction is fµN.

Physics teacher tells us this is true because the maximum static frictional force (fs, max) is equal to the coefficient of static friction (μs) times the normal force (N).  Written as an equation you then get:

 

Oh yes, what fµN indeed.  Happy Friday.