Drama Duck and the $327 hair-washing hose

You’ve seen them before. You may even have one in your home – those short rubber hoses with a thing like a shower head on one end and something on the other end to attach to your tap’s spout. You use them for washing kids’ (or pets’) hair in the tub.

I bet yours didn’t cost $327, though.

I saw one in the supermarket recently and thought how handy it would be for washing the kids’ hair in the bath. Better than the little red toy bucket we normally use to scoop already-soapy water over their soapy heads for rinsing. This could provide non-soapy, temperature-controlled water. A luxury experience!

Admittedly, I did hesitate for a moment. Not at the price – it was only about $7. But my friend who cuts our hair has one, and when she comes to our house to do hair, the only tap hers fits is the one in the laundry sink. But the packaging on this one said “fits most taps!” in big, confident letters, so I trustingly put it in my trolley.

“Look what I’ve got!” Full of enthusiasm, I display new fit-most-taps hose to ducklings.

“Cool!” says Drama Duck. “Can I see if it fits?”

“Sure,” I say. What could go wrong?

Drama Duck disappears to bathroom, where she attempts to ram the very small fit-most-taps fitting on to the very large distinctly-not-fitting tap. Undeterred, she twists evil, lying fitting back and forth, trying to somehow screw it on to persistently oversized spout of bath tap.

Moments later Drama Duck reappears with that “uh-oh” look on her face that every parent knows.

“I’m really sorry, Mummy,” she says, holding out the spout, which has sheared off the wall in a distressingly non-fixable way.

She’s clearly expecting to be roused on, but I’m so impressed at this bizarre feat of strength all I can do is laugh.

Of course, the plumber’s bill to instal a new tap was less funny. We are now the proud owners of the most expensive metre of rubber tubing in history.