Sylvia Plath Installs a Shower Caddy
The shiny metal taunted me. Slowly, I bent to pour the pieces out of their chintzy box, the kind big factories make out of dusty, recycled paper, too flimsy to hold the weight of the light aluminum inside of them. The poles clinked together as they bounced on the flowered pattern of our queen bed’s quilt. At least we share a bed, not like some couples who after a spell together take to separate rooms entirely, content to dither away their time separately, as if they were alone, as if they had never met anyone or shared a bed at all. I didn’t know why I had bought that old shower caddy in the first place. Nothing would please him. He’d somehow gotten it into his head that he wanted a full-range receptacle that hung from the neck of the shower head itself. I hadn’t the heart to tell him it didn’t exist. For weeks, that summer, I trolleyed about, looking for the pretend caddy. Finally, it was enough. I just bought this standing thing. We’d had one growing up, and I don’t remember it be...
