Strategies for going polar

About a week ago, I had someone come in to look at this problematic leak that was coming from my upstairs bathroom into my kitchen and creating a mess.  I had finally gotten tired of trying to figure it out and brought in someone who knew what they were doing.  Good news:  we (ahem - he) identified the leak and got it stop-gapped.  Bad News:  In order to really fix the leak and get everything in the house back to normal, the water had to be shut off.  My unit shares it's water with about 7 others, which means that it really could not be an impromptu thing, unless fixing the leak was an emergency.  So, trying to be a good neighbor, we stop gapped the problem and set up a time a week from tomorrow to get everything done.  That's good news.  The bad news?  The leak was with my hot water valve on my tub, so to get everything to "not leak," now I have no use of the hot water in my shower.  Good times, huh?  


So - two weeks without hot water.  I can handle it, I'm tough.  I also work out in the morning so I can just use the gym shower.


While this is all true.  This is some cold water we're talking about.  The first cold shower I took from it was slowly after my appointment.  November in Atlanta?  There ain't no lukewarm stuff coming out of that spickett... it's cold.  Really cold.   I also hate to be dirty and sometimes showering at home is the only real option I have (especially with my brother staying with me from Houston for the next day and a half), so I've had to come up with some mental (and physical) strategies for making it through the freeze.  So, I've come up with a few (some with the help of Chuck my brother who has had to endure this unfortunate turn of events with me), and thought I'd share.  Because you know, whether it is a house repair, a wilderness camp, or "that guy" in your ski condo that used up all of the hot water, all of us may need some strategies for the polar expedition:


Mental Strategies

• The "This is going to be short" mental strategy:  By convincing myself that I don't need to have a luxurious, spa-like experience in the shower and that the "basic purpose" of going in here is to clean the bod, I can set my expectations that I can really just "get in and get out" and be fine. 
• The "God made polar bears" mental strategy:  Polar bears and seals jump into this ridiculously cold water way up north all of the time and they don't die of hypothermia.  In fact, they not only jump into this ice bath but they LIKE it.  So if it's good enough for them, then it's gotta be good enough for me.  Granted, I don't have nearly the massive BMI of a polar bear, but that's a minor detail that I will block out if I have to jump into 60 degree water.  
• The "Estonians jump into snow after sauna" mental strategy:  Having been to Estonia and having friends in that part of the world, I am aware that during the winter during sauna, people will jump out of a 102 degree C sauna and will run with whatever clothes they had on in that sauna and jump into a pile of SNOW to cool themselves and then run right back into the sauna.  Snow is much colder than Atlanta's cold water.  That, and not wanting to be seen as weak knowing that this is a common practice in certain parts of the world (and among crazy people in outdoor hot tubs during ski season), that a cold shower is nowhere near the magnitude of frozen snow.
• The "this is going to wake me up" mental strategy.  It's the only one that's really rational too... but cold showers are much better than even Starbucks coffee for waking someone up.  

Physical Strategies

• If you have access to hot water, wet your sponge in it before going in.  Chuck told me he did this and I thought it was genius so I did it.  If you don't have to lather with cold water, don't.  
• Keep it short and sweet.  Your body won't know what hit it, and you will wake up.  Go with a quick burst of freeze to get wet and then another quick burst to rinse.  
• Wash your head last.  More heat escapes through the head than any other part of the body (which is why it is recommended to wear hats in really cold weather), so it's not as bad if your head is still dry while taking care of the rest of the bod.
• Laugh at it.  Laughter actually impacts your physical body, so it's not just good for your soul but will also help the bod get through the 2 minute drill as well.  

There you have it.  Wisdom from youth camps, being last in the shower rotation, and having the hot water cut off.  If you have any interesting strategies that you use (especially those of you in student ministry that deal with this regularly), I'm all ears :-)