BREAKING: Man Announces Ambitious Showering Goals
LANKVILLE ACTION NEWS: YES!
Andy Reinheimer is a self-proclaimed world-class taker of showers. The 32-year-old mechanic-cum-graphic designer has honed his craft over a lifetime, fueled by a passion that he says few can comprehend.
“How long is the typical shower?” he asks, somewhat rhetorically. “Seven minutes? Five? Ninety seconds if you’re really in a hurry?”
“Child’s play,” he scoffs.
Reinheimer, who hails from the Northern Lankville Peninsula Area, sometimes takes showers that last 45 minutes or more, with his longest clocking in at over three hours. He describes his technique as a careful combination of the “Three P’s”: perseverance, precision, and “Puffy Soap.” “‘Puffy Soap’ is made from a secret recipe that I’ve developed in collaboration with Vitiello Decorative Hams,” Reinheimer says, using excess swine and decoration parts from Vitiello’s factory. It will soon be available for purchase alongside other Lankville products.
“You have to love it, you know?” Reinheimer says.
A typical shower begins with the sculpted Reinheimer standing with arms pressed to his torso and thighs, eyes closed, and head tilted slightly downward, facing the nozzle as hot water cascades over him. He holds this position, which he calls “The Nestling,” for upwards of twenty minutes. Then, with extremely slow and precise movements, he begins to turn.
“Most people splash water around pell-mell, in a haphazard kind of way,” he says, his voice barely concealing his disdain. “They scrub here, scrub there, lift their arms up, pick some lint out of their belly buttons, and they’re done.”
By the time Reinheimer has completed the second phase of his shower, “The Pivoting,” he has rinsed and washed every pore of his body with a thoroughness that defies description – that to some people, Reinheimer reports, flies in the face of sense and reason.
“People are bothered by it,” he admits. His epic showers in local gyms are often met with staring, guffaws, and bewilderment. But sometimes he enjoys a more positive response, one from which he draws inspiration to keep going. “One guy hung around to tell me he’d watched me shower for half an hour. He was moved by it, especially when I got into a crouch for the final phase, ‘The Pod.’ When I hear something like that, it just drives me to push harder, shower longer.”
With that in mind, Reinheimer plans to move to the Lankville Partial-Ice Regions next year and begin a competitive shower league. “Those people are really into bathing,” he says, adding, “it must be all the geothermal pools and hot springs and whatnot.” It will be good, Reinheimer says, to live in a place where people take showering as seriously as he does.
Until then, he’ll just keep doing what he does, letting the water wash over him and honing his craft.
LETTER SACK