Shower Curtains

Flightless Bird

David Farrier

Comedy, Flightless Bird, Documentary, Society & Culture, David Farrier

5 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David Farrier sets out to understand why America - despite all its advancements in innovation and technology - has decided to stick with the puzzling shower curtain. Why, while countries like New Zealand embrace the shower door, is America stuck in a long-term love affair with the fabric (or sometimes plastic) mistress? David calls his old friend Harvey from the Toilets episode to discuss American showering habits, before spending the day with the self-proclaimed “Glass Queen” who spends her days removing shower curtains and replacing them with glistening shower doors. He talks to professor David Schmidt about his complex mathematical simulations of shower curtains, to discover why the shower curtain insists on sticking to your body while you shower. Maybe this is a clue to why 66% of Americans shower daily, compared with 80% of Australians… and why 10 million Americans shower once a week or less.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick.
0:07.0	Now there are a lot of things I'm learning to love about this country, from the giant burgers to the obsession with football, baseball and Disneyland.
0:15.0	But there are things that are still utterly mystifying and confusing to me too.
0:20.0	Things that make me want to scream at the heavens like Brad Pitt at the end of seven.
0:25.0	Oh God!
0:27.0	Oh God!
0:28.0	And at the top of my list of depraved things Americans do?
0:32.6	Shower curtains.
0:34.7	Because America is obsessed with shower curtains.
0:37.8	In New Zealand we have shower doors.
0:39.9	You open the door and you step in.
0:42.0	Beautiful light enters the shower,
0:44.1	we're happy and we're free.
0:46.0	But in America, I pull the shower curtain across
0:49.0	and I'm sealed inside a dark moldy cave.
0:52.1	Maybe that's why Americans don't shower as much as some.
0:55.0	Studies have 66% of Americans showering daily,
0:58.5	compared with 80% in the likes of Australia.
1:01.5	3% of Americans shower once a week or less. That's almost 10 million people.
1:06.7	Now of course many countries also have shower curtains, but America prides itself on progress
1:12.4	and innovation, shiny new things.
1:15.4	So why has it decided to keep the humble shower curtain?
	...

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