You've all read this by now, but just for good measure

Yesterday I took the most awkward bath of my life. We are in the last leg of our trip, staying in the house of some of Michele's friends. There is a bathroom connecting the rooms that Michele and Rich stay in and the one that I stay in with the kids. In our room, Michele is saying goodnight to the kids; she has said I can take a bath or go sit in the living room for a while. In the other room, Rich is putting the baby to sleep. So I decide to go to the living room, where I discover our hosts arguing with their own cranky children. I immediately retreat and decide to take a shower. Showers are one of my least favorite things about Europe. Showerheards are rarely fixed at a sensible height on the wall, instead you find the handheld kind resting just above the taps to fill the tub. However, you can't even take a shower with the handheld in this tub since there is no curtain. Just a tub. So I run a bath. I don't want to use a lot of water because this isn't my house, but I don't want to turn the water off and have to hear whatever it is that's happening in any number of rooms around me. But I do. And so I sit there in three inches of rapidly cooling water. I try to lie down. I try to relax. Both are impossible.

I am made all the more anxious by my awareness that at any moment, either of two doors will fly open and there I'll be... naked to whomever, in three inches of bathwater. I am even more worried about this given the fact that twice in the first two weeks, someone has walked in on me in the bathroom. The first time I thought I had locked the door and Alessandro (a friend of M's whose apt we were visiting for the day) burst in looking for his glasses. When I finally came out he tried to make me feel better saying "I didn't see anything!" holding up the glasses he'd been trying to find. The second time, a week later, Stella runs into the bathroom, sees me on the toilet and stands, staring at me like a very intrigued deer in headlights. After a solid minute of me saying "Stella! Leave! Stella! Get out of here!" she finally runs out of the room, a weird I've-seen-something-I-shouldn't've-how-cool smile on her face. Realizing that I'd been walked-in-on once a week since the vacation started, I sadly admit to myself that since we'll be in Italy for three and a half weeks, it stands to reason that I'll be walked in on three and a half times. Ha ha ha, I then think. "Three and a half times! Impossible!"

And so it comes to pass that not only in the last week of this vacation, but in the same day, in the same trip to the bathroom, the remaining one and a half unexpected bathroom visits happen. In the supposed security of this bathroom from Mommy's bedtime visit on one side, Daddy putting Baby to sleep on the other, and Host arguing with Small Child on yet another, I take off my pants and walk around the bathroom gathering and preparing various things for my bath. The moment I realize what an awkward way this would be to find me, the door from Daddy's side starts to open. I try to knock as a subtle signal, then say "There's someone in here," and finally after Rich's "Oh... ...sorry..." I have to concede, "I'm about to take a bath" which, I feel, is quite obvious code for, "I'm half naked."

Narrowly avoiding what could have been a hugely awkward situation, I realize that I was just half-walked-in-on and so there must be one remaining incident. I have been sitting awkwardly in the tub for several minutes when there is a small knock on the door from the kids' room. "Yes?" "I have to go potty" says Stella. My towel is, of course, on the other side of the room. I hear the knob turn. "Wait! Just a minute. Please." I luckily find one closer, stand up in the tub, and wrap myself up. I let her in, trying to keep out of the doorway as much as possible. I stand there, dripping wet, wrapped in my towel as she ambles over to the potty making random-five-year-old conversation. She takes her sweet time with the toilet paper. Stands up... looks at me... looks at something else... says something... "Stella! Wipe!" "Oh yeah." She takes even more time flushing and walking to the sink to wash her hands. "Stella! Hurry up! You're interrupting my bath!" She doesn't get this. I break it down: "I am still taking a bath. I got out of the tub to let you in. 0When you leave, I will get back in. I haven't even washed yet. Please hurry up and leave." She stands there and considers this. "Oh. Okay." Finally when I let her back into the room, she and her brothers try to engage me in meaningless conversation. "I'm shutting the door! Don't talk to me anymore! Don't talk to each other! Go to sleep!"

Deciding it's time to end this most awkward of bathtimes, I set to washing myself. Except that there's only three inches of water in the tub, so I have to rinse myself off like a baby. With the souvenier Coke cup sitting in the bucket with the childrens' toys. The perfectly awkward end to a perfectly awkward bath.

So right now the thing I'm looking most forward to about coming home is a proper shower.