We were both sick when we woke the next day; Maureen had chest pains and my throat felt funny.

"I wonder if we're allergic to each other, Salvador."

I went to take a shower. You might think it's very romantic to take a shower with your date, but my plan was to expectorate all over the floor. Actually, I'm not crazy about showering with people even when they are my date. There's a lot of standing around for one thing. I'm not saying it's the worst thing that could happen; I guess it depends on your mood. But I don't think I feel too strongly about it. They say when you reach a certain age you get set in your ways, and this is probably a good example of that. Maybe if I showered with people everyday I would feel differently. But that hardly ever happens unless I go to a pool--and how often does anyone go to a pool?

I was showering for a while. I showered the hell out of that hotel, trying to get the water to run into the middle of the room. It was constantly running down the drain. I showered all over the place but whenever the water went outside the curtain it would just sit in the middle of the floor, not trying anything funny. It was the goddamndest thing. I investigated until I could see where the floor was just slightly angled at the border of the stall. It was a clever design, I can tell you that.