I don’t want to swim! - declares my little grandson, and adds for complete clarity:
I do not like to wash!

Well, this, let’s say, is not true. In a few minutes, he will have fun playing in the bathroom with his little brother, making his beard and skins of foam and chasing rubber sluts and ships. He is very busy right now. A man in three years has a lot of things to do.

“I’m very sorry for you,” I told him, helping to collect toys, “when I was a little girl, I didn’t like to shower.

My grandson doesn’t believe me. First of all, all mothers and grandmothers for some reason love to wash. Secondly, grandmothers are not little girls. They just appear in the world - right away grandmothers.

What? How old am I? Well... I still remember the invitation “Come and watch TV.” Here you count.
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We lived in a communal. There was no hot water there. No wonder, many people lived like that. There was no bathroom either. There was cold water in the kitchen. And that was a great good. In the morning, the neighbors ran in a row to this crane - each had a towel on his shoulder, and in his hands - soap, toothbrush and a box with tooth powder. Where did the tooth powder go? He took, and disappeared - at some point, everyone went on toothpaste.)
Water was brought into the house shortly before I was born - before that, I had to walk with a barrel to the column on the neighboring street.

I still remember those street columns. Residents of small wooden private houses in the district still used them. In winter, the column was covered with ice, this ice looked very seductive, and sometimes very stupid children tried to lick it. Or get someone to lick. The tongue immediately crumbled, and the friends of the victim went to the nearest house shouting: "Aunt Stephan! The tongue is frozen!” Aunt Stéphane with a whirlwind carried out a cupcake with warm water, heated on a fork, and released the unhappy man. One time is usually enough. Repeat this number, as a rule, nobody tried.

When I was a kid, swimming was like this. Near the stove (ah yes, I forgot, because there was still a stove, it was melted with coal and wood) a bath was placed on two chairs. Remember those galvanized baths? I saw it recently in Ikea. I did not feel any nostalgia.) The water was heated in a large pot on the plate, and then carried into the room, trying not to splash. The water was very hot - it was poured into a bath and diluted cold. Then it became a little hot, and the adults began to argue: "Cold the child!" “Nothing, let it go!”

Then they washed (the soap must get into the eyes), then washed out of the pot (the water was either too hot or too cold). If you turn to the oven with your back - cold stomach, and if the stomach - cold back.

In short, the pleasure was weak. It is clear that the children did not like this procedure. The little ones cried and resisted, and those who were a little older cried and cried as much as they could.
“What is this bath?” - Mother said sadly, "only dirt smelting, and all..." And the bathtub gradually became small.

So it’s time to actually wash. That is, to go to the bathroom.
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I went to the bathroom with my grandmother. I don’t like those journeys. Something must go wrong. In the dressing room, we are given a number with a hole on which the numbers are printed. The hole has sharp edges with spots - as if not to cut! (I will definitely cut off.) My grandmother gave me the number with the strictest order not to lose. (I am always losing everything.) I clamp it in my fist and think that if I were a kangaroo... it would be much more comfortable. This is the truth, where to put it?

The floor in the bath is soap and slippery. Adults scream at children all the time: "Don't stand here - they will be pushed!“Don’t go there – you’ll slip!“Don’t leave, stay next to me!” “Do not get confused under your feet!” (I don’t know how to combine it all) “Look under your feet!” “Look around, don’t scream!” “Don’t dare to sit on the bench! Few people were sitting there. You can get infected!” (Why put this bench here if you can’t sit on it?) Where is the number? I dropped him down, I think... Oh, here’s he. And indeed he fell. I looked at the scandal.

What a scandal? Always the same thing. A mother brought her little son. What is this, I ask? Little boys go to the bathroom with their mothers. (And in the summer on the beach, small children and all naked run - and it doesn't bother anyone.) But the women think that this little boy is already too big. I wonder how do they know?
“The insane!One of them said, “Let such a big guy go to a women’s bathroom.” “It is right!” Supports the other. “Let him go with my father!” “Nothing will be done to him!” I wonder if the boy’s mother is offended. “He will not defile you!” This, of course, is followed by a general outrage, whether actual or supposed, simply for order.

I sympathize with the “big guy” from the heart, and he, the poor man, tries to justify himself: “I can’t see anything, my mother washed my eyes!”

After all this, I don’t even notice when my grandmother tricks me to wash. We go out to the dressing room, and with relief I give my grandmother a wet room - not cut and not lost, fine! The F-Fuh! We dress - everything as usual: a dress, a coat, a coat, a towel, a hat ("so that the ears don't get cold") - well, finally! We go home.

In front of us, the mother leads the hand of the “big boy” who whispers, “Never again... only with daddy... everyone is fighting... I don’t want...”

But then... I, honestly, I’m not guilty that something happens after the bath. Not very lucky! For example, this is this:

My grandmother and I walk past the house, where some uncles just climb the roof - whether to repair this very roof, or remove it. From the roof suddenly rises a huge cluster of pigeons - apparently, the workers scared them. The noise of the wings, the wind, the dust, something drops on us... Grandma laughingly cries with her hands and cries, “Kish!“But the pigeons don’t listen to her.

I look at my grandmother. On her light coat the flowers are somewhat black-and-white, and on my black coat - white-and-grey...How did it happen?

Finally we come home, the grandmother somehow cleans my unhappy coat, and I relieved to run to play in the courtyard, listening to the mandatory instructions before this "do not stumble." At least until my mom comes back from work. "May she at least once see a clean child!" (It’s true, we both understand that it’s unlikely to work out, but the ritual is a ritual.)

The game is very interesting - in the courtyard are low wooden stalls, and someone comes to mind a brilliant idea to run on the roofs. It is easy to get there - near the barrel there is a barrel on which wood is rolled, and a reversed barrel.
One or two and we are on the roof. The view from there really opens up something quite different - and our courtyard, and the neighboring, and the street - but... unfortunately - the sharkers are old. Of course, as the lucky one, I fail inside. Fall not very high - the barrel is full of coal brought for the winter, and the coal is rolled almost to the top.

I hardly get upset and I don’t even have time to be scared. But when I get out through the hole in the roof, all the kids start laughing loudly. I wonder why...? Well, the coat is fine - it is black, nothing is visible on it. Here are my hands... yes, my hands are dirty... And something tells me that my grandmother won’t like my appearance. Even after all my friends, having finished laughing, friendlyly try to cut me off and clean up.

Mother will not see a clean child again.
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To my great joy, these journeys did not last long - only a couple of years. After some time, Mommy's friends moved to a new cooperative apartment, where - a miracle of miracles! There was a bathroom, and hot water flowed straight from the crane.

And a new epic called "Come to us to swim."
But it is a completely different story. For another time.

My grandchildren have already bathed. It is time for them to sleep.