Lather, rinse, reflect in shower thoughts

The Enigma Explorer is back.

This go-round, though, the EE is meandering into new territory. Instead of solving mysteries that we’ve thought about for years, such as why there are no B batteries and which way the aluminum foil should face, the EE is headed into the sphere of – tada! – Shower Thoughts.

Frankly, I had never heard the term until I was surfing the web late recently. Which means that I am more than a decade behind the times because a Reddit community dedicated to this topic was created on Aug. 16, 2011.

In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, too, let me explain. Shower Thoughts is a popular online group where users share random, often insightful or whimsical ideas that occur to them while they’re in the shower. Or in some cases – ahem – as you’re aimlessly surfing the net at 1 a.m. while lying in bed.

The term “shower thoughts,” of course, captures the idea that showers, being a time when people are often alone and relaxed, are conducive to having unprompted, creative thoughts. Undoubtedly, before the rise of Reddit and similar platforms, people had similar experiences but didn’t have a specific term to describe them.

Me? I often have my most creative thoughts while in the shower, but by the time I’m dry, the thoughts are just as evaporated as the bathroom steam.

But let’s circle back to the concept of Shower Thoughts themselves. Just today, just for you, I have amassed a collection that has piqued my interest. Please note that I’ve gathered these from various sources and that they’re not all personal musings. Here goes:

• You’ll never stand backward on a staircase.
• It’s not fair that coffee stains your teeth brown, but milk doesn’t stain them white.
• “Go to bed, you’ll feel better in the morning” is the human version of “Did you turn it off and turn it back on again?”
• Biting your tongue while eating is a perfect example of how you can still mess up, even with decades of experience.
• If James Bond is the most famous spy, wouldn’t that also make him the worst spy?
• We put round pizza in square boxes and eat them in triangles.
• Accidentally liking someone’s post while snooping through their profile is the digital equivalent of stepping on a twig while sneaking through the forest.
• If it was possible to eat all of yourself, would you become twice as big or would you disappear?
• There should be a reality show where flat-earthers have to find the edge of the world.
• Cheesecake is secretly a pie.
• If 24-hour clocks started at 23:59 and counted down till 00:01, people might get more done.
• Most people aren’t scared of being alone in the dark. They’re scared of not being alone in the dark.
• Your stomach thinks all potatoes are mashed.
• Witches have black cats because if they had white cats they would have white cat hair all over their clothes.
• Using a dollar bill as a book mark is cheaper than buying a bookmark.
• Water is a beverage whose flavor is its temperature.
• Only one sock goes missing because if both did, you wouldn’t notice.

And a final thought to salute our current time here in Louisiana: Adult peer pressure is the sight of your neighbors mowing their lawns.