I don’t take many baths. It takes a lot of time to do it properly. You have to think about it for a while, decide whether or not you’ll take a book with you, fill the bath, cool it a little, warm it up again when you cool it too much, spend a few minutes getting in while wondering if the pain is really worth it as you slowly immerse your big toe, millimeter by millimeter. And that’s just the preparations. Then you actually soak for a while. And then you actually have to get out, shivering as the now-cold water evaporates off your goosebumps. Seriously, you have to really want to take a bath for the cost-benefit analysis to come out in your favor.

In the last year and a half, I’ve only taken three baths. The first was the week I moved here, and it was uneventful. The second I’ve already told you about. I still remember the accusation in the voice of Ms. Second Floor as she demanded to know what I was doing up there, and she knows I’m in there because she can hear me moving around. As if I was trying to hide the fact that I lived above her while I also tried to hide the fact that I enjoyed pouring buckets of water all over my floor. She didn’t seem to believe me when I mentioned that I was just taking a bath.

Well, I recently decided to take a bath for the third time since moving here. Long after I’d drained the tub, I was watching the Daily Show when I heard a pounding on my door. That’s right, 10:00 at night, and Ms. Second Floor is pounding on my door. Since she is my building manager now, I decided to open the door even though I thought it was beyond the call of duty.

“You flooded my bathroom again!” She spat (smelling oddly of alcohol, I might add).

I apologized and explained that I’d taken a bath that afternoon.

“Well, I’ve got an inch of water in my tub now, and the whole ceiling is just ruined!”

“I was just taking a bath.” (I didn’t add, “As I should be able to do, since there is a bath tub built into my apartment,” but I thought it.)

“But there’s so much water.”

Seriously, what does she think I was doing up here? In-house slip-n-slide? But I’m so, so bad at confrontation that I just apologized again and suggest that she alert maintenance. Then I spent an evening alternately furious that she would suggest that this was my fault and guilty for having caused her trouble. I explained to myself over and over that I shouldn’t feel guilty. After all, I was using a built-in amenity in the manner in which it was intended to be used.

So the next morning, early enough that I’d be sure to get a machine instead of her, I called the leasing office and suggested (in a frustrated tone of voice) that when she talked to maintenance she should be sure to tell them that this is not a sporadic problem, that it had happened two of the three times I’d taken a bath, and that I’d appreciate knowing when I’d be able to use my bath tub for its intended purpose again. And that’s as far as I can go when defending myself from unstable, dishonest building managers. Sad.