Naked and afraid

One of my biggest fears is probably being caught naked by people I know or in public. I think it’s a reasonable fear. When I was on exchange in the States and living in a dorm, I always felt really bad for whenever we had late night or early morning fire alarms and people would be in shivering in the cold, grass sticking onto their wet feet with only a towel on as we speculated which room was smoking and set it off. It’s why I never sleep naked, because I’m terrified that a fire alarm or emergency will happen. Can you imagine trying to brace during an earthquake naked??  I can, and I never want that situation to even have a chance. 

Unfortunately, I feel like I’ve had some very close brushes to being exposed to my greatest fear. Literally. I don’t know if it’s because I’m afraid of that situation happening and so I remember the instances more, but I’m also afraid of dogs that bite and I’ve never come anywhere close to facing it. This weekend I had a huge near miss with being naked and people seeing, and I’m still shook. I thought it would be funny to recollect all the times that I’ve been naked and afraid.

1. this weekend

Let’s start off with Sunday. I had just finished taking a nice shower and was going to get out of the shower. My friend from Wellington was also staying with me and watching TV in the living room on the level below the bathroom.


I slid the shower door open… and realised that the door was now falling onto me. 


We had just watched an episode of Why Women Kill where a dude falls out of the shower, shatters the door and cuts his arm on all the glass. I got to remember this while being the only reason why this heavy glass door wasn’t shattering around me. I was totally naked, holding up the door and unable to lean it against anything because it was too heavy for me to move. It was wet and I was freaking out. I wanted to get my towel but I wasn’t able to hold up the door with one hand 😫 I could hear my flatmate watching TV from her room so I was shouting her name, but she couldn’t hear me. I don’t really want my flatmate seeing me naked, but at this point I was thinking about just how long I would need to be doing this until someone discovered me. Horrifying. And cold.

I however did manage to snag my towel and get it in front of me while I was waiting to be noticed, and luckily my friend heard. She came in and helped hold the door while I got my towel properly wrapped around me and we lifted the shower door back onto its track. No nakedness was seen, despite me resigned to my fate. Am still thinking the absolute fear that was running through me at the time that I would have to be naked in front of people!!!

2. Second shower mishap

I’ve just realised that all of my mishaps centre around the shower. Maybe because it’s the only time I’m really naked?? 

I remember when I was home alone when I was younger and was doing a Rachel from Friends, excited that I could be naked and no one could see me. I was going to have a shower, and was dancing around. I got in, and realised that I had forgot my towel, so I felt very confident dashing out to get it.

Well. Running while wet on hardwood floors means I totally stacked it and slipped and fell on my back and hit my head. I remember staring up at the ceiling like ?????? because I was so shocked. Then I realised I was lying on the hallway stark naked. 

Once I got my shit together and slowly walked back in the shower, I realised that there was a possibility I could’ve fainted or been hurt from slipping and having to lie there naked until my family found me. I could not have thought of anything worse. I would rather have all my flatmates see me naked for an hour than any of my family seeing me naked for a second. HORRIFYING. 

3. Third shower mishap

There has been a time where I have actually been caught nekkid. It was of course, in the shower.


Like I said, I’ve lived in a dorm before, and so there were communal showers. The communal showers only had curtains for each stall, not a locking door. I was having a shower late at night and this drunk girl came in loudly shouting for her friend.

You know how sometimes you get the feeling that something is going to happen? I just knew that something would. I was making noise and decided to turn the shower off. Of course, the moment when I turn is the moment this girl ripped the shower curtain open and she gets treated to a full frontal nude of me as I gasped. She immediately yanked the curtain closed and started apologising profusely, but she was drunk so was apologising over and over. Because I didn’t have my glasses on, I couldn’t see her face, so in a weird way I felt a very ‘I couldn’t see her so she couldn’t see me’. Plus she was drunk so I hope my naked body isn’t seared into her memory. Although now looking back I was in better shape than I am now so I don’t even care if I am. 

But also, it’s a lot to do with that I will never see her again, and I couldn’t see her properly in the first place 😓

4. Fourth shower mishap

I love a steamy shower, especially when it’s cold. It’s extra warmth! I don’t take hot showers – just warm ones. I discovered this when I was doing a Contiki tour of Europe and the girls I shared the bathroom with asked me if I constantly adjusted the shower tap to the middle, or if I just took lukewarm showers. I guess I just take lukewarm showers. I thought the shower fan was to get rid of the steam if you didn’t like it, or to prevent mould. So when I think the air is cold, I love it when the bathroom steams the fuck up.

This actually happened a few weeks ago, where it was a cold day and my bathroom was steamy af after a shower, like I was living in a cloud. Or rainforest mist. I also live in a townhouse complex where I share walls with both my neighbours.  I opened the bathroom door in my towel, the steam rushes out and sets off the fire alarm which I know my neighbours can hear.

I had to break my rule of running while wet trying to find a broom to poke the shower alarm and pray that my neighbours didn’t think there really was a fire going on in my house. I turned the shower fan on immediately and closed the door but the alarm was still going off.

Nothing happened, the alarm turned off by itself and none of my neighbours mentioned it. The least risky of all my experiences, but maybe the one where my adrenaline was going off the charts because of the fire alarm soundtrack. And now I know that the shower fan is not there to ruin my fun, but also protect me from being caught in my original fear situation where I shiver outside in the cold, pebbles digging into my wet feet surrounded by my neighbours. 

I don’t know what my takeaway is from here. Stop taking showers? Is this the normal amount of shower mishaps for someone? 

Either way, I hope to God that this won’t escalate. I don’t want more to add to this list. I don’t think I would cope if the situations got worse. 

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