The Broken Shower

Amy lived in a two-story house that had four apartments inside -- two upstairs, two downstairs. She lived on the right side of the house, upstairs. There was a young couple in the other upstairs apartment, a businessman with a roommate in the left downstairs apartment, and the owner and landlord in the right downstairs apartment, just below Amy.

Jason Cordero was the landlord. He was a very kind man of about 40 who owned several properties like this one. This one was unique, however, since he actually lived there. He was a responsible and trustworthy landlord, which is never an easy thing to find. And he was always watchful of Amy since, in this house, she was the only tenant who lived alone.

On this particular Saturday, Amy had just taken her laundry to the basement. There were three washers and three dryers, and Amy usually did a single load every weekend. However, last weekend, she was unusually busy and didn't manage to get her laundry done. Also, she had just begun a new program at a local gym, so quite a bit more of her t-shirts, underwear, and shorts needed washing. In fact, she was using all three washers! She was nervous about this -- "oh dear, what if someone else needs to do laundry, and I'm taking up all the machines?" she fretted, aloud, as she loaded her clothes in. But she knew she had to get it done, now was the time.

She ran back up to her second story apartment. The wash would take about 30 minutes to run -- just enough time for a quick shower. She turned on the hot water, peeled off her gym clothes, and stepped into the shower stall.

The hot water felt great. The gym was exhausting, but the water made her feel refreshed and clean. She had a lovely mint-scented body scrub, floral shampoo. The shower was such a relaxing time for her. Sometimes, she would just lose herself in thoughts as the water cascaded over her.

She was in one of these dazes on this particular Saturday when she heard a strange cracking noise. She opened her eyes and looked around. "What was that?" she asked nobody. Crack! "Seriously, what the heck was that?" Crack! Crackle-crack! Amy started to get nervous. She started rinsing the soap off her body, when the cracking noise got louder, and noisier, and -- crack-crackley-crack-crick-crackckkck ... pppsssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Suddenly it was clear what the cracking noises were -- it was the glass door to the shower stall! While Amy stood there panicked, the glass of the door spiderwebbed and shattered! Whatever kind of glass it was, as it shattered, it broke into a zillion little tiny pieces -- not big shards that would be easy to clean up, but little tiny horrible pieces. They went everywhere. The floor of the stall. The floor outside the stall. Some cascaded into the hallway.

Amy was terrified. What could she do? She felt unsafe just stepping around in the stall. She quickly shut off the water, and tried to collect her thoughts.