I got out of bed at 8:30am last Thursday and wandered bleary-eyed into the shower. I bathed in the jet a little, before commencing the shampooing cycle. I was enjoying my usual invigorating lather when the water suddenly cut off. After wiping the soap from my eyes using a dry towel, I tried other appliances in the apartment only to be greeted with the same hollow, metallic moaning.
I stood bewildered for a while, trying to wake up properly so I could evaluate the situation, when I heard a tremendous sawing coming from the basement of the building. I remembered something about plumbers coming to fit a water meter, but I was sure that was meant to happen at midday on Friday.
When it was meant to happen was of no importance any more. They had audibly started the job and so I was stuck with a scalp full of foam for the foreseeable future. The only solutions to the problem I could think of were: rinsing my hair in the several pints of milk we had in the fridge, or walking to the local kiosk to buy some bottled water. I couldn’t be sure that the first wouldn’t exacerbate the problem further and I wasn’t prepared to try and explain to a shopkeeper, in poor Danish, why I was wrapped in a towel and dripping soap suds into his drinks cooler. I accepted my fate and skulked back to my bedroom.
There are many benefits to running your own company; one of these is not having to make embarrassing phone calls to a superior when such calamities strike. I simply e-mailed Casper and Lenni to say I would be working from home for a while and spent the next 90 minutes sat on my bed, with the layer of shampoo slowly forming a polystyrene-like helmet.
The shower eventually came back to life and I rinsed, scraped and carved the flakes from my head before conditioning as usual. For all the early morning drama, I have to say that my hair felt wonderfully soft all day and I received more than a few compliments about its shine and vitality.