How long have you gone without a shower or bath?

[hornadylnl]

Ok, apparently the OWS camps are just seconds away from propagating the next ebola outbreak or black plague due to hygiene issues. IIRC, it's only been in the last 100 years or so that the human race has learned much about hygiene and how it affects our health. I remember watching a documentary on New York City and it's residents dying by the thousands due to the nasty living conditions, lack of proper sewage disposal, etc.

I think the longest I ever went without a shower was almost a full month in Pinion Canyon, Colorado. I finally got access to a blister bag shower hanging from a deuce and a half mirror. One of the other showers I'll never forget is spending 2 weeks in a Spanish desert. Just before we got to go back home, we all had to line up for the shower tent. There was one big tent you got undressed in and then we filed through about a 20'x20' tent room. The shower tent consisted of the Spanish dirt floor with a plastic walkway about 18" wide that went around the perimeter of the tent under the shower heads. Once the tent was full, they turned the showers on for 3 minutes. Whatever you didn't get washed or rinsed in those 3 minutes was your problem because like it or not, the water was getting shut off.

In the infantry, we had many field exorcises where we went 1-2 weeks without showers. If we didn't eat MRE's, they brought out chow in insulated cans called mermites. 3 or 4 guys served us as we went through the chow line. There were no sinks. I remember sometimes having a 5 gallon water can and maybe some soap to wash our hands with as we got in line.

Are we really that prissy as a nation that we can't go 24 hours without a shower?

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

I may be a priss, but I become intolerable to myself at 3-4 days. I imagine if conditions were bad enough I could suck it up, but we're, like, civilized or something, right?

 

[1911Shooter]

Ok I voted for 1 week but everyone needs to know that I was primative camping, and when I say primative I mean out in BFE and by myself. Im normally a twice a day type guy.

 

[4x4]

3 days once when I was an over the road truck driver. Drove from Indy to Columbus OH, to Fontana California, then on the way back took a shower in Gallup, New Mexico. I hate truck stop showers. I was running with a partner and neither of us really wanted to stop, we wanted to get the run done as quick as possible.

 

[Benny]

8 days during a backpacking trip in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The whole senior football team went out there a few weeks before the season started.

Besides that, maybe 2 days while camping.

 

[hornadylnl]

I may be a priss, but I become intolerable to myself at 3-4 days. I imagine if conditions were bad enough I could suck it up, but we're, like, civilized or something, right?

In the field, we'd smell ourselves for the first 2-3 days and then it'd go away. After a week or so, you could smell yourselves again. Then, you knew it was bad.

 

[perry]

Longest I can remember was probably about a week-ish if you don't count the jumps in the lakes and rivers while on a canoe trip. It was a Boy Scout trip as a teenager and they had to pull me out in the middle of the trip and fly me home due to family emergency. When mom picked me up at the airport the first thing she said was "you smell like the river!" I feel sorta sorry for the person that sat next to me on the airplane!

 

[lovemachine]

Are we really that prissy as a nation that we can't go 24 hours without a shower?

Prissy? We're a civilized nation. There's NO reason NOT to take a shower everyday...

 

[hornadylnl]

Prissy? We're a civilized nation. There's NO reason NOT to take a shower everyday...

There wasn't a shower stall in my Bradley.

Our power went out for about 16 hours over the summer. It was out all night. The next morning, I woke up from the chair and gave myself a ***** bath with bottled water. No big deal. I can't imagine this society without their curling irons and hot showers in a large scale power outage.

 

[85t5mcss]

I (unfortunately) was not in Military so if I was stinky it is my own fault. I've only done overnight camping, so I have never had to go long without being clean. Longest I have gone is prob just over 48 hours. Whether it be from camping or serious case of flu that had me bed ridden.

never been hospitalized in a coma or anything either.

 

[MAJB Retired]

Military/, while on an exercise at Ft Campbell. Thank God for the Land Between the lakes are!

 

[Dave Doehrman]

It was about 50-60 days at one point. Even the rats started staying away from our underground bunker. Military tacticians wonder why the NVA never staged a full scale human wave attack. I think they feared our funky aroma.

See the link below for a page on our showers and another photo.

Recon Showers

 

[Outlaw]

6 days for me during a Canadian outpost fishing trip. We washed up a lil with lake water but im not counting that lol

 

[1911 mike]

While in Vietnam on 34 day field maneuvers during Tet offensive 1968, it was so bad I could not stand myself. Often splashed a little water on my face and hands, and a few times on my back side, that was about it. My buddies said too me, "man you stink" SO DO YOU!!! Now I like a shower twice a day,every day....

 

[cobber]

Two weeks backpacking. After a few days you don't notice the stink. Also the accumulation of body oil actually helps insulate you against cold, and the dirt keeps the bugs away.

 

[geronimojoe85]

There is actually a lot about hygiene in the book of Leviticus (I know I'm skirting the line of religious talk) and it protects against most communicable deseases.

You will wash with water and be declared unclean until morning.

 

[dhnorris]

im working out of town and staying in my 14x8 camper sink toilet heat fridge pc but no shower. Shower Sunday before church, shower Saturday night when I get home. No complaints but, no visitors either. Diaper wipes are not just for babies.

 

[Kase]

The longest I've went was a week while canoeing/camping in the boundry waters in Minnesota. Luckily the temperature was perfect most of the time, so no one was sweating and stinking hardly. Great place to go and I highly recomend it

 

[7th Stepper]

Ok, if taking a shower or a bath every day makes me "prissy" then I'll be the first one to admit it.....I'M PRISSY!!!!! I don't go for the blow dryers, curling irons or hair straighteners, but SOAP is what I consider a mainstay in my life!

I used to go camping for a week or two with my ex, and fortunately we always camped in the same spot every year, literally. I'd bring all the essentials, toothbrush and baking soda, Ivory Shampoo and Conditioner, and Ivory Soap/Body Wash. I found a little waterfall just down the road from where we were, where I could climb about half way up and found myself a rather decent waterfall with a little pool to stand in. I'd go there at least once a day, no one could see me from the road, I had my bikini on (altho I moved it around as necessary) and would take a full shower and wash my hair every evening!

Ivory is 99.9% pure, so I didn't feel bad about harming the environment in any way. Even the little fish and pollywogs in the pool I stood in weren't harmed by it. During the day while my ex fished, I sunbathed, and went swimming in the Yuba or Truckee Rivers and would wash off that way too. Even at the little store/bar/restaurant across the road from our camp site (The Indian Valley Outpost) sold Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo and Conditioner. Since they made their living off the campers who fished the river,and guys who mined for gold, (they actually made a living doing that 6 months a year) I guess they knew enough not to pollute their main source of income.

The longest I've ever gone without an actual, fully qualified bath or shower was between last Oct 10th and the 25th, after the doc did the surgery on my foot, and I couldn't get the site wet, let alone get the danged cast on my leg wet either! But that didn't mean that I didn't keep clean. I wrapped my leg from the knee down in Saran Wrap, then filled the tub with a few inches of hot, soapy water, with one foot in, the other out, and sponge bathed that way.

To me it didn't really qualify, so the second we got home from the Drs office, after he took the cast off and the stitches out, I climbed into a bathtub full of hot water, bath salts, all my hygiene supplies, and soaked and scrubbed for 4 hours! I was so clean I squeaked!

And Bill's the same way. Can you imagine being in an accident, needing medical attention, and the person tending to you, leaning over you, smelling like an unwashed body?!?!? That alone would make me sicker than I already was! According to our daughter, men who don't bathe regularly smell like "tacos". So she'll only eat ones that are freshly made, or made at home.

I couldn't even imagine going a week without some sort of shower or bath, let alone a couple of weeks or a month. I'd start offending myself! ICKY! Our dogs are cleaner than that!

So I guess I'm just Prissy to the Bone! And I like it that way. If SHTF, I'll figure something out then. At least here in Indiana it rains so hard sometimes that it's sort of like taking a shower, providing the rain isn't something with some sort of fall-out from some explosion in it. YUCK!

7th Stepper
Prissy to the Bone!
But always Squeaky Clean!

 

[42769vette]

i went hunting in colarado about 10yrs ago. it was cold out and they did have a shower but the water was not cold. on day 4 i couldn't stand it and took a 1 minute shower. it wasn't much but it got me by another 3 days