What Would Happen If You Never Got Out Of The Bath?
This is What Would Happen If, a close examination of mundane hypothetical situations. Each week, we look at something that you could do but probably never would, and take it to its logical endpoint. This week: What would happen if you just never got out of the tub?
It's been a long week. Time to unwind. You uncork that bottle of Sangiovese that's been waiting patiently on your counter. You hit play on Spotify's Bon Iver artist radio. You start to fill the tub.
Eventually, you slide into the steaming, inviting oasis. Your sea of troubles recedes, revealing the warm, happy self you knew was always there. Suddenly, a thought crosses your mind: What if you never got out? What if you opted to just stay in this bathtub's comforting embrace?
As much as we need water to survive, it doesn't seem like such a good idea to just hang out in the water forever. To validate our fears, we spoke to Dr. Jeffery Fromowitz, a dermatologist based in Boca Raton, Florida.
"In essence, prolonged immersion in water supersaturates the skin and can lead to skin breakdown," writes Dr. Fromowitz in a email. You will, literally, waste away hanging out in the tub.
The more pertinent question here isn't what will happen, but rather when. Most assume that when they start to get wrinkly fingers that's due to their body absorbing too much water. But those people would be wrong, on two counts. Wrinkly skin is the body's way of trying to improve grip in wet conditions. And according to Dr. Fromowitz, when it comes to interaction with water and the skin "the mechanism and reasons why are poorly understood."
What we do know, however, is after a day or two, you body will start to form vesicles — bubbles that form when there's liquid trapped between the outer layer of the skin, the epidermis, and the middle layer, the dermis. Eventually, these will rupture and the outer layer of your skin will start to peel away.
This, in and of itself, will not kill you, but exposing the layers of your skin that's not meant to be exposed will greatly increase your chances of infection. Given the fact that you've just been laying in a tub for multiple days, we're going to assume that other bodily fluids have begun to season your self-stew. This, when combined with your now-exposed skin, will probably result in an infection. Infection will, as we've found in previous editions of What Would Happen If, definitely kill you.
Of course, your skin sloughing off and leaving you vulnerable to a litany of bacteria and fungi isn't the only threat. As we've found in our examination of sitting forever, staying in a single position for any prolonged period will result in atrophy, sores and, in the very worst case, blood clots that can shut off the flow of oxygen to your body. That last one would kill you before the bacteria could.
Further Reading
GQ's Overly-Detailed Guide To Taking A Bath
The Sweethome's Guide To The Best Bath Towel
Pitchfork's Review Of Slowdive's "Slowdive"
Next Week
What would happen if you only ate potatoes?
Got a burning (hopefully not in an infected way) hypothetical question? Submit it to [email protected]. And for more, check out our What Would Happen If archive.
