Snakes On A Plane

OK it's not exactly snakes it's a shower head and pipe, it's more of a car than a plane and Samuel L. Jackson didn't step in at any time and say 'Everybody listen! We have to put a barrier between us and the snakes!' so don't get too excited. Although it did entail plenty of wrestling with it snake style as I tried to remove it's vice like grip from the shower unit, a position it has held for eight years so was unwilling to give it up without a fight even though the night before it had split near the shower head and sprayed water liberally around the cubicle leaving just a dribble coming the right direction so you would have thought it would be weak after being injured.

The staff at my local DIY store shrugged with that special shrug they do that tells you it's your problem and they really don't give two hoots if you can't find it, you know the one, it's the shrug that ends with a casual wave in the general direction of 23 aisles and the bored 'it's over there' now go away face. I eventually found them tucked away behind the carpets and next to a thousand shower heads some of which featured attachments so exotic they looked illegal. Really, three heads, power action and massage mode?

Faced with twelve different shower pipes that all look exactly the same but range from £3 to £30 always fills me with a dilemma. Do I go cheap and regret it or do I buy the most expensive, after all there has to be a difference right? Next comes the comparison, I unfurled my damaged pipe and compared nozzles, you know, to make sure they matched the size, not easy and I couldn't be sure they were exactly the same so I did the sensible thing, took a shower head from the display and tried it in the new pipe, it fitted perfectly so I unscrewed it and tried it in my damaged pipe. It also fitted perfectly, perfect I thought then panicked, it was stuck. I must have damaged the screw thread when I wrestled it from the shower earlier.

Oh no!

No matter how much I tried I couldn't budge it an inch. Jayne held one side as I twisted and turned it trying to use the increasing tightness in the flexible pipe to give me more leverage. Apparently I over did the twisting looking back and it suddenly become alive as the twisted pipe decided to release all it's energy back into the shower head and it spun out of my hands. I have to say people can really move if they have too, my metal snake complete with shower head head wriggled, writhed and clattered it's way a few feet down the aisle, shoppers scattered as if confronted with a real snake, I however, stood mortified.

I didn't even feel particularly like a snake handler either as I retrieved the shower snake from the floor although I did feel like saying 'It's OK everyone, it's dead' or 'Watch out! There's another one!'. The head still would not move and I sheepishly retreated to aisle 3 and used an adjustable spanner to remove it.

In the end I went for a middle of the road replacement pipe that fitted perfectly and pondered shower snakes. Do they exist and what do they look like? I feel a painting coming on...