Sometimes You Have To Show A Little Boob To Get The Full Story

Are you willing to die for your next blog post or newsletter? I promise there's a worthwhile message at the end 😁

If you live in a country where winter is king (Canada, I’m looking at you), a few things will always be facts of life.

For example, a hot shower in Canada is such a letdown in winter. You get in it to warm the hell up but the warmth only lasts as long as the shower. Eventually, you have to turn it off because hot water costs money and there are starving children in Africa. But then you’re wet and feel even colder than you did before getting in.

You know the phenomenon where all good story ideas materialize in the shower? That’s where this one’s coming from. It’s a memory jog back to the scariest shower moment of my life.

It happened when I lived in Jamaica and it happened during a power cut. I swear I could write an entire memoir called:

“Events that happen during power cuts in Jamaica.”

Having spent a number of years there, naturally, I had made plenty of friends scattered across the island. My restless spirit forced me to make frequent road trips and drop in on them for a few days at a time. These visits were an opportunity to couch surf while discovering more pieces of rural Jamaica and learning more about culture and local life.

If there’s one thing my Jamaican friends had in common, it’s that they ALL had windows in their showers….at boob height….without curtains. No lie, every single one of them had an uncovered window in their shower.

This created plenty of potential for free peep shows when I showered at night with the lights on. I’m positive at least one local earned a decent living charging admission to “Naked White Lady Nights.”

In this particular story, I was staying high up in the mountains at the family home of my friend, Alvin. His house was very large and divided into several private apartments where various family members lived separately, yet together on the property.

The section I stayed in was a ground-level apartment where Alvin and his children lived. One night, I was alone in the apartment while he was at work and his children had gone to the upper level to sleep at grandma’s.

With nothing better to do, I thought I’d freshen up before bed. Yes…in the shower with the window at boob height, obviously with the lights on.

It was pretty late and I figured the whole family would be asleep. For sure no one would be roaming around that side of the property in the dark.

As I merrily scrub-a-dubbed the night away, suddenly the lights went out.

There I stood, paralyzed in blackness. Believe me, you have not experienced darkness until you’ve experienced it in rural Jamaica. I mean, the mountains barely have cell service, why would they have reliable power?

So there I was, naked in the shower and scared shitless. My first instinct was to call out for Alvin thinking he had come home and pulled this as a prank.

I called his name…..no response.

Then, out the corner of my eye, I saw a figure move past the window outside. I’m even more terrified now because I had no idea if it was him or someone else and I was too scared to step out of the shower…..because surely a shower curtain would save me.

Of course, every horror flick I’d ever seen fired simultaneously on all receptors in my brain. I knew this was the moment when my life would ultimately end, right up there on a mountaintop in Jamaica.

No one would have ever discovered what happened or how I disappeared.

Because I’m a friggin’ superhero under pressure, I somehow managed to find my towel in the dark, wrap it around me, and reach for my phone on the vanity. I turned on the cell phone flashlight but was still too scared to exit the bathroom.

Wet, Naked, and Afraid. The worst TV survival show of all time.

I crept from the bathroom to the bedroom as if tip-toeing made me less of a target for murder. But I know how these things play out in movies. The quieter you creep, the more knife slashes you earn.

I quickly threw on my clothes and again tip-toed into the living area where the front door is. Just as I rounded the corner my hallelujah moment had arrived. The lights came back on.

I could see the front door was still dead-bolted.

I felt like a complete fool.

An hour later when Alvin finally returned from work I told him about the whole ordeal and he nearly fell over laughing. He said he WISHED he would have masterminded a prank this good.

Thanks, Alvin. Good talk.

The next morning we found out it was his brother outside the bathroom window and ever since then, I’ve always wondered WHY?

How long was he out there enjoying the free show? Or had he just come down after the power cut out to check on me?

I’ll never know the answers to those questions and it has always bugged crap out of me.

On the flip side of funny…

Remember earlier when I said I could write a book on events that happen during power cuts? Sometimes, the most unlikely circumstances bring about the most beautiful human interactions.

In 2016, Jamaica experienced an island-wide blackout for three solid hours. Literally no power across the entire country.

It just so happened that I was staying alone in a huge, three-story villa that I’d been asked to review.

It’s the eeriest feeling stepping out onto a balcony in a remote area and seeing absolutely nothing but blackness forever and ever, amen. The only lights I could see came from the occasional passing car.

The blackout had me pretty shaken and did not wish to sit alone in that monstrous house, so I hopped into my car and started toward the beach road. I figured if anyone had backup generators (and alcohol) it would be hotels.

I drove until I came upon a little guest house complex I had worked with in the past. I could see from the road that scores of locals had converged in the light of this tiny property. Their bar was open, their music was turned up, and camaraderie was in full effect.

This property only housed four tiny guest cottages, nowhere near properly staffed for an influx of blackout refugees. Noticing the young woman behind the bar struggling to keep up, I did what any polite Canadian would do and jumped behind the bar to help a girl out.

Everyone lingered for hours, drinking, dancing, and partying as if nothing was different about this night. Finally, the power kicked back on across the island and our party crowd cheered like we were at an NBA game.

This event instantly became one of my most cherished memories of living in a developing country. Where in the complaint-loving first world can you experience a country-wide blackout where people come together rather than rioting and looting their neighbors?

If you’re the type who needs a takeaway at the end of a story…

In my decade of travel writing, more than half of my stories were inspired by mistakes and mishaps, and by far those ones had the highest reads and responses.

Quite possibly the most accurate travel quote I’ve ever come across is this:

Travel: It leaves you speechless and then turns you into a storyteller.

That’s why we’re all here, right?

Obviously, I didn’t die for this story 😁 Just like I didn’t die (but almost did) for this one. However, I AM dying to hear from you.

Did either of these incidents trigger any thoughts or memories from any of your travels? Do tell!