If ever I am adept at losing sight of things like common sense and reason, it’s when lower back pain strikes, like the first hours of today for instance.

Nothing helped. Shifting position? No relief. Walking around? No relief. Stretching? No relief, though accompanied by a series of heartfelt grunts and groans that deserved to be written down. Then a hot shower and some relief. 

Not for long. The pain was back in full force. And then, a question arrived, almost in the form of a whisper I could almost feel; “What about taking a bath?”

Let me cut to the chase. It took me a good half-hour to figure out I had no good reason to avoid a bath. My resistance, I realized, was born of an honest but ignorant boyhood myth

Real men don’t take baths.

Rubbish. My dad taught me to pay close attention to emotion’s decision-making influence: sometimes accurate, sometimes not, always real.

So, I got into the shower, turned on the stopper, stood there under the hot shower as the tub began to fill, sat down in the warm water, and took in the experience of sitting in hot water while the hot shower hits my shoulders, back, and head, and I am experiencing a heaven called comfort. 

Then, the tub full, I stop the shower and sit in the bath for a little while. And then, while still sitting in the bath, you’ll never guess what happened. The lower back pain was gone. All gone.

Real men take baths. This one does.