Mysteriious Shower Alarm

What is it for?!!!

Well, Chris, even though I've never been to Italy, this might be a reasonable purpose for the string:

When you get into the shower or tub, you become a passenger on a bus. You pull the string to send an alarm to the driver that you want to get off at the next stop.

Works for me.



Maybe Rick Steves or Rudy Maxa knows the real purpose.
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"If you allow yourself to be offended, then you're a bit of [a] nitwit."
(Christopher Moore)

But every hospital and nursing home in the world has that....
that's the I've fallen and I can't get up cord.
While it's true that if you actually slipped and fell you couldn't reach it, if they made it longer you might trip on it, causing you to fall.
So if you plan on falling or are falling make a last desperate grab for that baby.
Otherwise, you'll have to hope you haven't shocked your spinal cord by impacting your tailbone and you can grab that sucker with your toes.
If you're unconscious and your body is blocking the drain and the water is going over your head and you don't regain consciousness, you're probably hosed anyway.
The body has all these weird self preservation things wired into it. Hence, throwing cold water into the face of unconscious people. But if your wires are that out of touch, probably the Darwin factor kicks in.
This why no nurses believe Peterson didn't drowned his second wife. Or third. Or whichever one she was before he disappeared the last one.
Also, unless Charlee knows how to say HELP in Italian and remembers the room number in Italian, you will probably feel better to know if she hears you yelp and a thud, she can come in and pull the cord, and while she pulls your body off the drain, they will be rushing there to help.
Also, usually there's one by the toilet for the I thought it was stomach cramps but I'm having a heart attack like Elvis it's the big one can you hear me Mabel string.
All in all, it's probably a good thing.
Do you get canoli or gnocci under your pillow in Italy?
SpeedskateyH wants to know....
Sheesh.
Ever since I read an article about how some plumbers goofed up and the apartment next to a bar had beer coming out of the tap, I would tell the patients we SAY that's an alarm but really that's to switch the taps over to vodka, wink wink nod nod.
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Last edited by Notdeadyet on Fri May 23, 2008 3:40 pm; edited 1 time in total

That sounds pretty reasonable, doesn't it?

I've sent one of the pictures to my cousin, Giulia, who was born and raised (the first 27 years) in Italy and asked her for an explanation.
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Mark it 8, Dude.

well, it is Italy.

Maybe it's the sexy alarm...you know, when you're in the shower and things are steamy (which I don't actually think can happen in europe-a steaming hot shower, but...) and you need just a little assistance with that junk bowl...

I say, just pull the damn thing, see what it does, and say that you tripped and grabbed it by mistake when whatever happens happens.

Like the fire drill in elementary school.
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I will gladly ravage you Tuesday for a ravaging today...

I don't know what "Alarm" refers to. But as far as strings in showers, I've stayed in hotels that had these retractable strings that you could pull across the length of the shower and fix upon the other side to use as a clothes line. Say you want to hand wash your pantyhose, but you don't want to have them dripping all over the bathroom floor 'cause they're tossed over the shower curtain rod.

My answers are always so boring and practical, I know. It's a personal failing.

Susan
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I wonder what Susan's reading:

http://inoneeyeouttheother.blogspot.com/

urhangovergirl wrote:

I say, just pull the damn thing, see what it does, and say that you tripped and grabbed it by mistake when whatever happens happens.

I'd have to agree to this plan, you're paying "rockstar" prices so it's not like they'll just kick you to the curb.

Likely scenario:

You pull the alarm naked in the shower.
Either a) Someone hauls ass to your room and checks on you or b) Nothing happens except the alarm makes a loud noise

In situation A you jump around naked and embarrassed while someone silences the alarm and, not wanting to embarrass you further (you might be British which could be fatal), they beat a hasty retreat and you get a funny story.

In situation B you turn the alarm off and the mystery is solved.

It's win/win for you, there's no risk!

That's just the suicide string. You see, the despairing use it to strangle themselves and their dead weight signals the alarm so that the Italians know when to pick up the body
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it is my lot in life to meet every ass hole on the planet and admire them for some quality that they possess that most others do not see b/c they can not see beyond the ass holiness ~permanently perplexed

So, Chris, I think we've determined that

You fall down in the tub, without breaking anything, and pull the alarm accidentally, because it had gotten caught in your junk.

Charlee comes in and thinks that you want your pantyhose to be hung up to dry. So, she does that, and leaves you alone with your thoughts about TP.

Meanwhile, the bus-driver, responding to your pull-alarm, has dropped you off at the Coliseum in broad daylight. Of course, you're totally naked and wet, except for the baseball cap.

Well, actually...this is what we learners of furry langwiches call a false friend, an expression or word that sounds familiar but means something else entirely. In this case [ALARM] doesn't mean "attention, attention, danger danger" but "my arm's too short, assistance please".
If you pull on the cord, a hot Italian babe will enter the bathroom and give your back a good scrubbing.
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It finally happened. My conscience stopped working. I've never felt so free.

O.K., if you're a girl does an Italian Stallion show up?
O.K., I'm think possibly Sue's idea makes a lot more sense in the context of a hotel.
Could that thing on the end be a magnet?
Is there a matching height metal plate on the opposite wall?
Is Alarm Italian for laundry?
I find laundry alarming.... is Laundry Latin for Alarm? No wait...does it work both ways? Language is a mysterious thing to me... I barely passed English.
Oh hey, maybe ALARm is a brand of laundry soap there... like "this drying string is brought to you by Alarm!" It's like it's sponsor sticker.
Cause, come on, like someone's gonna mug you in the shower....
HEY, I think Feef is on to something! Maybe if you pull the string Wonko will show up!
Also, if you are wearing a baseball cap, you aren't naked, you're just nekkid.
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O.K., SpeedskateyH looked at the pictures again. First she was sure it was a clothes line like they hang their skins on when they go to meets and stay at the nice hotels...
Then she said "Look at the bar rail, that might really be an alarm, they stuck him in a handicapped room. That's why, he's in the accessible room."
O.K., that makes sense.
She thinks my idea of Alarm being a soap dry line sponsor is "stupid", which I think is very rude to say to the person who PAYS FOR THOSE FANCY HOTEL ROOMS AT THE PETTIT TRAINING CENTER. sheesh.
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See, I never saw anything like that when I was in Italy - and I was there for a month. I saw the junk-washers, and the hole-in-the-floor toilets, but not any strings in showers.

My guess is, when you booked your hotels, you mentioned something about moorons, or you had your head over on one side like you do in pictures, and they thought, "Ah! here's someone in need of a handi-capable room!" and voila! You got the help-me-I'm-fucked alarm. But hey, what do I know? I'm with URHG - pull it, find out what happens. Seriously, what's the worse that could happen? (anyone else hear that? sounded like ominous music...)
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"Life's too short to get wrapped around the axle about the little things." - SK

-The First Law of Geography: Everything is Connected to Everything Else.

O.K., I've been thinking about this seriously while cleaning and putting the kids to bed. This is my new theory....
This is the Italian "what we going to do if America does a preemptive strike on us network."
Somewhere in your room, disguised as an ice bucket or a trash can is a stainless steel container.
You pull that string out and put that magnety thing on that container, then you stand in the shower with it's excellent acoustics.
Because you know that whole, lets drop what looks like old cassette tapes tape all over the electric and phone lines crap. And how it's all magnetized and crap and it grounded out all the electricity and did electrical magnetic field magic on their phone lines (I have a very good friend in Intelligence that claims that group was responsible for developing that, very cool idea, of course my friend could be lying. That's the cool thing about working intelligence, the government can neither confirm nor deny, nor can they punish you for revealing stuff that doesn't exist, because that would be like confirming it right? Plus, they lie about a lot of crap anyway. This would be a great job for me. I don't think I could pass the psychological.) Anyway,
you know, Italy is like worried, because they think we blame them over the whole Shoe Bomb thing, you know, just in case....
So those oddly arranged credit card like weird light switches in your room, you have to do them in certain combinations then go put the thing over your head or by your ear.... You will have a direct line to Fabio in no time...
Sure, the technology is crude, but efficient no?
Please photograph your light switches!!!!
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suetu wrote:

I don't know what "Alarm" refers to. But as far as strings in showers, I've stayed in hotels that had these retractable strings that you could pull across the length of the shower and fix upon the other side to use as a clothes line. Say you want to hand wash your pantyhose, but you don't want to have them dripping all over the bathroom floor 'cause they're tossed over the shower curtain rod. My answers are always so boring and practical, I know. It's a personal failing. Susan

Wait... hold up... when did the AG start wearing pantyhose
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