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They thought they were being helpful, so we don’t hold it against them. And to be honest, we’re not exactly sure who to thank. Or to blame. But at some point, someone added a showerhead to our outdoor shower in Morehead City, and panic swept through the Greater Nickens Ecosystem.

A little context: Early in our 13 years of owning the house, the showerhead on our outdoor shower fell off. For most homeowners, this would have prompted a visit to the hardware store and a quick fix. We, however, quickly fell under the spell of the serious water pressure that gushed straight from the open pipe. We all agreed: Keep your fancy rain showerheads to yourself. Ditto those adjustable showerheads with three oval settings for a full-body experience, and the showerheads with a choice of full-body spray, full spray with massage, massaging spray, shampoo-rinsing spray, and pause feature. (Only $255 at your local big-box home improvement store.)

Keep ’em all, grab a towel, and come on over. Because once you crank our straight pipe to full blast and the water comes rushing, unfettered and unrestrained, it’s like a cross between a tsunami and a torrent. Our shower water enters the world in a one-inch-diameter stream moving at 10,000 miles per hour. It’s like the difference between driving an EV and a 1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, like the one the Bandit drove while outsmarting Smokey.

Who wouldn’t choose the Screaming Chicken?

• • •

For folks lucky enough to have a beach or mountain place, an outdoor shower is nearly a necessity. There’s something utterly charming about coming in after a hot day and washing off the creek mud or beach sand with a full view of the open sky.

Over the years, our family has employed a range of outdoor showers. When the kids were little, we rented what I believe was, at the time, the least expensive beach house on the entire island of Bogue Banks, a cinderblock cube in Emerald Isle we dubbed “Cheap Ugly.” It did not come with an outdoor shower, so I would duct-tape a hose pipe — what the younger folks might call a “garden hose” — to the top deck railing, and there ya go: an outdoor shower, DIY-style.

Camping along the Outer Banks and in the mountains, we frequently use solar showers, heavy-duty black plastic bags that we leave out in the sun to heat their contents to a tepid but tolerable temperature.

Like everything these days, some outdoor showers have gotten downright uppity, in my view. Ours is not one of those. We don’t put on airs when we’re in Morehead City, and we don’t need to. At night, with the stars winking through the boughs of the crape myrtle that reaches over the top of the shower, you feel like the king of the world. You want to stay in there for hours. But you can’t, of course. Thanks to the lack of a showerhead, you have only 37 seconds before you drain the hot-water heater.

• • •

Despite its incredible flow rate, our outdoor shower is not perfect. Like many elements of the Greater Nickens Ecosystem, it has its peculiarities. (Alas, the same has been said of the Nickenses themselves.) It’s not for everyone.

For starters, it’s too close to the sidewalk. As in, close enough that passersby might catch a sudsy drop or two if the wind is blowing just so. And the neighbors can definitely see the feet of whoever is taking a rinse.

Our shower’s plumbing comes straight from the Island of Misfit Valves and Gaskets. The hot-water handle is made from a spare piece of metal simply bolted to the rest of the plumbing. The cold-water handle is a wing nut-looking thing that works fine, except it leaks and spews a jet of cold water out of the back of the valve that’s aimed straight into your face.

illustration by Scott Brundage

For years, the perfect patch for this was one of Julie’s elastic hair ties tripled over and smushed into the joint between pipe and handle. Ever since she started wearing her hair shorter, however, our stash of hair ties has winnowed away to nothing. The next best choice has been one of those fat rubber bands that hold heads of broccoli together at the grocery store. They work like a charm. Jack Dawson could have doubled up one of those suckers and patched the hole in the Titanic.

The Nickenses are nothing if not adaptable. We’ll do anything before calling a plumber.

Perhaps our shower’s most endearing trait is its location on the opposite end of the back porch from the kitchen door, which affords the only access to the porch. Thusly and therefore, shower-takers must parade for 28 feet — the entire length of the porch — whilst wrapped in little more than a towel, stepping over our two dogs and bidding pleasantries to the rest of us, who are likely sitting on the porch couches, eating potato chips and French onion dip for breakfast, because that’s what you do at the beach in the summer.

But it’s worth it, I promise you. It may be morally wrong and likely unlawful. Our shower is not approved by Greenpeace.

But oh, buddy. Once you know.

Once you know what’s coming, you steel yourself. Bent knees, braced abs. A slight forward lean so you’re not fire-hosed into the back wall. Squint those eyelids tight so they don’t peel back like onions. You could step to the side and then inch into the vortex timidly, but the best way to take it is all at once, at full force.

And enjoy it. It is a primordial feeling, practically unknown in this era of gallons-per-minute flow monitors. You will be blasted clean. Scoured spotless. Exfoliated, even. And I won’t even charge you extra for that.