Guess what, Infographics fans- that's right, it's challenge time again.
Over the past year we've been exploring the limits of human endurance, testing the strength
of the human mind, body, and spirit.
Today we're back again with another special challenge episode, as we seek to delve once
more into the greatest scientific mysteries of our time- such as what would happen to
your body if you stayed in a bath for 24 hours without a break?!
This greatest of scientific explorations can only be undertaken by your favorite, and our
slightly-less-disposable-than-before staff writer!
So stay tuned and find out just how pruny the human body can get.
Hour 00:00
I have never done well in confined spaces.
I remember when I went to see Kill Bill ages ago in movie theaters, and there's that scene
where Uma Thurman finds herself in a coffin.
I practically had a panic attack, because I really hate enclosed spaces and sitting
still for too long.
Now, suddenly, my entire life for one day straight is going to be both of those things-
though I guess I should be grateful I'm just going to be living in a tub and not a coffin.
I immediately regret saying that, because I'm sure someone over at Infographics just
got a very bright idea for the next challenge.
I have to live in the bath tub for the next day.
I have made a habit of trying to think of what insane, dangerous, or humiliating challenge
Infographics could be coming up with next, but honestly I never thought of this at all,
and believe me I've done a lot of brainstorming as I try to prepare for what might be next.
It's a pretty obvious choice for a challenge really, but so simple I never even thought
about it.
I remember taking really long baths as a kid and I'd play with my legos in the tub, it
was a blast.
My fingers would get all super pruny and the first time it happened I cried because I thought
it was permanent.
Of course it didn't help matters any that my older cousin teased me and convinced me
that I had just ruined my skin for life.
Man, you sure are gullible when you're a little kid.
I guess today I'm going to find out just how pruny the human body can get.
I know from survival school that you want to keep yourself as dry as possible when you're
stuck out in the wilderness, because if your skin is always wet it can start to actually
slough off and expose lower layers of skin to infection and other nasty things.
I can't help but wonder if something similar could happen here- I'm not sure how long it
would take for skin to start actually falling off.
I tried googling it but surprise, surprise, nobody really knows- I guess today I'm making
internet history by discovering exactly how long until your skin starts peeling off like
the peel of an overripe fruit.
Hooray- he said very sarcastically.
So the rules are simple: I have to stay in the tub no matter what.
I'm only allowed to get out of the water to use the toilet, because we are civilized people
after all.
Other than that though, I can't get out of the tub.
Once more, food won't really be a problem thanks to food ordering apps and entertainment
is simple with phone and laptop.
Modern life is so convenient that it's a little scary to think I could literally live my entire
life in a bathtub and never leave for anything- even most of my work is done online over the
computer, and I can sign up for electronic transfer for all my bills.
It's kind of fascinating when you think about it.
Ok, I'll check in every four hours or so.
I don't own legos anymore so I'll be entertaining myself by rewatching the Lord of the Rings
trilogy, and completely ignoring that The Hobbit movies were ever a thing.
Hour 04:00
Rub-a-dub-dub, four hours in the tub.
I'm not going to lie, these first four hours have been kind of relaxing.
We have a small tub, but it's kind of really relaxing, and there's soft padding on one
end so you can lay back with bubble jets along the rim of the tub.
It's actually a pretty sweet setup.
Funny thing is, I have never in the seven or so years that we've been living in this
apartment, used the tub to take an actual bath.
I'm just not a bath guy, and sure a bath with your significant other is romantic, but our
tub is sadly not big enough.
Typically the girlfriend takes a long bath once a week or so, and I totally get it now.
I even used some of her fancy soap oils, and now my skin is silky smooth.
I accidentally used too much of the bubble stuff though and for a minute I thought I
was going to die from asphyxiation as more bubbles than you've ever seen in your life
filled the tub and then literally went everywhere on the floor.
Have you ever put regular dishwashing liquid in a dishwasher?
Yeah, it was a lot like that.
For thirty minutes it was man vs bubble in this bathroom, with me fighting for my life
against an inexorably rising tide of rose-smelling bubbles.
Needless to say, the girlfriend is not goin g to be pleased about the mess.
Well, I can totally see why she does her weekly hour-long bath.
Sure, four hours is a bit much, but I'm still kind of loving it.
My fingers are prune-city, and I got curious and did some googling and it turns out that
your fingers may actually turn pruny because its your body's way of helping you get grip
under the water.
Very neat.
It's getting close to lunch time and I'm getting a bit hungry, but with food apps getting something
tasty to eat won't be a problem.
So far, one of the easiest challenges I've ever done!
Hour 08:00
Ok, so I ordered lunch on Postmates and it wasn't until I got the notification that my
delivery driver was a few minutes away that the fatal flaw in my plan suddenly hit me-
I can't leave the tub to answer the door.
I am home alone, the girlfriend's filming and won't be back until late today, so unless
I could teach the dog how to grow an opposable thumb and turn a door knob, I was in trouble.
Now we live in a pretty safe part of LA, and even though I insist on the girlfriend locking
the door when she's home alone, I honestly never do it myself when it's just me.
I grew up in a really rough neighborhood, and the place we're at now is basically disneyland
by comparison, so I never feel the need.
I'm sure you guys can already see where this is going, and yes, that's exactly where it
went.
When my driver arrived I got the notification, “Susan has arrived with your food!”.
Then a moment later, this Susan called me to ask which apartment it was exactly.
I knew it was a bad idea, I knew what it was going to look like, but rules are rules, and
I could not leave my tub.
I asked Susan if she would please bring the food up the stairs and into the apartment
itself, explaining that I was suffering from a medical condition and was currently unable
to make it to the door itself.
Susan hesitated, and really, who could blame her?
But bless her heart, she agreed.
A minute later I heard the door slowly creak open, and Susan called out, “Hello?”,
in that unsure, very wary tone of voice that any normal person would have not knowing if
they were about to enter the home of a serial killer.
My dog ran up to her immediately and he absolutely loves people, plus he is pretty cute so I
guess that set her at ease- after all what serial killer owns a happy little dog?
I called out to Susan and apologized profusely, explaining I was stuck in the tub and would
she please mind setting the food just inside the bathroom door.
A very long, very awkward silence followed, and then Susan asked me, “You're like, normal
right?
You're not going to do anything weird, are you?”.
Yes, dear, sweet Susan- I'm a perfectly normal guy who just happens to have a job where he
has to spend 24 hours in a bathtub and now I'm asking you, a complete stranger, to walk
into my house and bring me food as I marinate in lukewarm water completely naked.
Because my mouth often works faster than my brain, before I could think about it I blurted
out, “I mean, I'm mostly normal.”
Susan must've been an angel, or incredibly brave, because she came to the bathroom.
I had created some courtesy bubbles to conceal myself and we just sort of looked at each
other for a moment, then she placed the food down and shook her head, muttering, “I really
hate this job.”
Then, Susan left.
Wherever you are now, Susan, I am so sorry this is the way you had to meet me.
But thank you.
Unfortunately she left the food out of reach and I had to use the Swiffer I'd been using
to pull things towards me to slide the food close enough, which resulted in the salad
I had ordered to fall off the counter and spill everywhere.
Because it was salad, the dog refused to even touch it, so now there's a large caesar salad
decorating the majority of the floor to our bathroom, and some poor college-aged girl
working a parttime delivery job to make ends meet probably thinks I'm a sex offender.
The girlfriend is really not going to be happy about any of this.
Hour 12:00
I have officially spent half a day in the tub.
The novelty has definitely worn off, and I had to drain the tub and fill it with cool
water because I felt like sitting in lukewarm water this long was starting to make me dizzy.
My fingers are basically ghost-white at this point, and I'm more pruny and wrinkly than
a Shar Pei.
My dog's been hesitantly coming to visit me in the tub- he typically will not enter the
bathroom under any circumstances because he's terrified of getting a bath, and when it comes
time to bathe him it takes me and the girlfriend both to chase him down and then drag him to
the tub.
Today though I guess he figured it was safe to enter the bathroom, and maybe from his
point of view he was really sorry for me.
I guess from the way he sees it, I must be in hell since I've been stuck in a tub for
half a day.
He came by at one point and gave me a sympathetic lick on my hand.
I'm feeling extremely restless.
I really hate sitting still which is why my previous challenge to sit on the couch and
watch youtube for 24 hours straight was so hard.
Now I feel confined, and I swear I'm starting to get a little claustrophobic.
I yearn to just walk around, stretch my legs.
Heck, I'd even go for a run right now and I very famously dislike running.
It's a very boring exercise.
Still, I'm halfway down and none of my skin has fallen off yet.
12 hours to go.
Hour 16:00
So I started this challenge shortly after the girlfriend left for work, and I realized
I never told her.
She got home and when she called out for me I told her I was in the bath.
I could tell from the tone of her voice that she thought it was super cute- like I said
before I never take baths and am kind of famous for it.
Then she walked into the bathroom and found the bathroom floor covered in salad, which
was itself floating in large puddles of water from when I overdid the bubbles and they got
all over the bathroom.
She didn't say a word at first, just looked around, looked at me, and face palmed.
Then she simply said, “I need a shower”, and she left to go next door to our friend's
place so she could use her shower.
Finally she came back and simply asked me how many days I was going to be living in
the tub, and she sounded relieved to hear I only had a few hours left.
Then she spotted the bottles of oils and bubbles that I had used and had a mini-panic attack
when she realized how much I had used, because apparently they are very expensive and you're
only supposed to use a few squirts in your bath.
I think I'd used at least a quarter of each bottle.
Well, now it's night time and while she gets to sleep in the bed, I have to figure out
how I'm going to sleep in a tub.
I'm not going to lie, I'm a little scared of somehow drowning, which I'm sure sounds
ridiculous until you have to spend your entire day in a tub.
Hour 24:00
It's morning, and I am free.
My night sleeping in the tub was terrible, if only because I kept waking myself up due
to the irrational fear that I would somehow slip under the water and drown.
Yes, I know the human body doesn't work like that, but don't judge me until you've spent
a whole day in the tub.
My fingers and hands look like something out of a horror show, and when the girlfriend
got a clear look at them this morning she almost screamed.
She is terrified my skin is going to start falling off now, and admittedly it kind of
feels like it could.
It's really, really soft- like too soft.
I tested it and I pinched one wrinkle and tugged at it and a few layers of skin came
loose.
Nothing major, but I feel like if I wanted to, I could easily start ripping a lot of
skin off my body- or at least my hands, toes, and fingers.
Oh, and yeah, that one other part too.
I think it you were to sit in a tub for say three days, you could probably kiss some of
your flesh good bye, because it would probably fall right off.
Either way, it's not something I'm eager- or willing- to try to find out.
I'm really sore, specially from where my body was laying against the tub for most of the
time, and the skin there is really whitish red and tender.
I bet if I had stayed there much longer something similar to bed sores would've started happening.
If you've never seen a bed sore, google it right now and open up the images tab- then
say goodbye to your meal plans.
So, yeah, spending a whole day in a tub is... kind of monotonous and boring, even with the
internet and modern conveniences.
I honestly wouldn't recommend it, especially if you're a fan of your skin staying put on
your body.
Sadly, we were never meant to be mermaids, though while I was in the tub I did read that
you would wrinkle less if you added salt to your bath water.
In hindsight, it's something I wish I had read before I tried this.
And yes, I left Susan a very big tip.
How would you spend your day in a tub?
What other crazy challenges can you think of?
Let us know in the comments or email us on our website!
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