Pay showers in Maine are, well, unpredictable. They can be pretty and quaint, with a home-like appearance. Or they can be little more than a workroom with washing machines, dryers, and vending machines. Oh, and a shower. Sometimes they can be frantic, coin-operated, wash-your-hair Ðand-clean-your-body-while-beating-the-clock affairs.

I mention this in self-defense, lest the tale I'm about to tell reflects poorly on me.

Anyway, is there anything hotter than Camden's inner harbor on a hot, humid, breathless day? I'll answer that Ð no, emphatically NO! At least there wasn't on the day we tied our Tartan sailboat to one of the floating docks in the crowded inner harbor. It was so hot that it was nearly impossible to breathe. A shower might have helped, but showering aboard meant the humidity below would negate any benefits of the shower.

So my husband, Eddie, took advantage of the dock owner's $2 shower while I stayed behind to pack up my shower gear. Eddie soon came back looking real cool. I lusted for that shower. He pointed it out. "See those stairs over there?" he asked. "That's where the shower is." He even walked me over to the stairs and left, taking our dog, Easy, for a walk.

Everyone knows an animal in distress climbs to the highest point. I can't begin to tell you how distressed I was. My clothes were stuck to my body, my eyes were stinging with salty sweat, and my head was swirling. It was hot! So I started climbing, seeking out the highest point. I anticipated the cold water rushing over my hot body. Not being a young girl, this fast ascent didn't help my heat prostration. I opened the door and to my frustration, it was not a shower, but an apartment. (At this point I refer the reader back to paragraph 1, concerning the variety of showers in Maine.)

In my over-heated condition, I theorized that the wharf owner maintained the apartment for storage and rented out the shower, and that's why there was a lot of junk around. Hey, I've been in crazier showers. At Bucks Harbor, I literally showered under the sky, with only a fence separating me from the men working a foot away. So this was just another crazy shower in Maine.

I navigated through a chaotic kitchen, around the junk in the living room, down the hall and there it was Ð a shower!

I thanked my good Lord for delivering it to me. That shower was paradise, heaven, and Nirvana all wrapped into one. I stripped off my clothes and was in there faster than an old lady can yell, "Bingo!"

As the water brought my body temperature down, my eyes stopped stinging and my brain began working. I took in my surroundings. A dirty shower! Certainly not worthy of that nice dock owner and definitely not worth the $2 we paid him. But why didn't Eddie mention this mess? I noticed a used razor in the soap dish, used T-shirts hanging on hooks, a lighter and candle by the toilet. As I peeked out, I noticed the shower curtain was taped to the wall with duct tape and that, generally, the shower wasn't exactly hygienically correct.

Uh oh. Could I have made a mistake? No, Eddie, distinctly said, "See those stairs?" In my book, that meant, "Go up those stairs." On the other hand, it was Eddie's book, not mine. I was beginning to feel very unsure of the situation, and the cooler I got, the more I began to think that something definitely was not right. I could relate to Goldilocks, caught snoozing in Baby Bear's bed.

Panic!

I rinsed my hair, jumped out of the shower, threw on my clothes, and put a comb through my hair. If the owners were outside, I wanted to be presentable Ð a worthy houseguest, or shower guest, or whatever. I could always say I was selling Tupperware. Or, better yet, I could tell them I was there to clean the apartment Ð that would work.

I gathered my stuff and slithered out, retracing my steps and praying I wouldn't find anyone climbing those stairs.

I couldn't wait to talk to Eddie, but wait I did, since he was still away from the boat. I'm sure he figured a shower would take at least 15 minutes, not the 15 seconds that this one had taken.

Eventually he returned.

"Eddie, Honey, did you think that was a strange place to shower?" I asked. Please, I thought, say yes.

He opened a door at the bottom of the stairs and peered in. Looks okay to me. Why?"

"Never mind," I said, "let's go Ð fast!"

Now some of my friends refer to me as the Cat Showerer or the Shower Stalker. But hey, this is Maine, and the showers provided to us boaters are, well, unpredictable. So if you find me cooling off in your shower, don't blame it on me.

Nancy Walsh lives in Beverly, Mass.

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