Sunday, January 25, 2009

Taking Notes in the Shower

I've had a decade-long quest to find a good way to take notes in the shower. As I've searched for a solution over the years I've been amazed to find that no one has already come up with a great answer. The good news is I've made progress in my search, thanks to a comment from a Facebook friend.

Other things I've tried, like grease pencils (don't clean up well) and dry erase markers (the "dry" part is obviously a problem) have failed, the main problem being the actual writing tool. Obviously it has to write despite surface moisture and it has to clean up thoroughly. If it gets wet it can't get easily washed away but if it does it can't stain. A tall order I know.

So yesterday I made a Facebook status update regarding my fruitless search and my friend Meg suggested the Crayola® Floating Art Desk, which, while designed for creative toddlers in the tub, also has a "storage" feature that allows it to hang on a wall, giving non-toddlers an adjustable-height writing surface while standing. I found one at Toys R Us for about $10.

The included writing tool happens to be a specially-designed crayon, which while water-resistant, isn't a tremendously accurate writing utensil. However, it gets the job done since I'm not generally jotting down more than a few words at a time.

Oh, one more thing, the Crayola Floating Art Desk is clearly not designed to fit in with an adult bathroom and since we don't have any kids I suspect I'll be explaining things to a few curious guests. I'll be honest, it looks fairly ridiculous. I'm considering making some modifications to it, provided I can do so without completely destroying it. You'll see what I mean in the photos below:


Shower Notes
The unit comes with a crayon storage compartment on either side.
I tried it on the tile, but it fell so I moved it to the glass door. So far so good.
The crayons are retractable. I'm not sure why.
I'll give it a little while before I call this a complete success, but in the meantime I'm feeling better about saving those random brainstorms in the shower.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can buy the crayons separately, and they'll write on your tile or on plastic siding.

storygas said...

Hi Mike
Glad I came to your blog on this post -- the perfect way to leave notes for the Missus in the morning
(probably apologising for the mess.)
NEIL
http://www.storygas.com

Anonymous said...

Hey Technogeekboy...we've started a business called AquaNotes. Waterproof notepads for showerthinkers. Check it out and let us know what you think. www.myaquanotes.com

Technogeekboy said...

I will check out AquaNotes. If they perform as shown on the site you could have a winner.