Jonny Doesn’t Want to Take a Bath
For every kid who ever said no,
and every grown-up who said “just one toe.”
Text © 2026 Jon Tiemann.
Jonny Doesn’t Want to Take a Bath
by Jon Tiemann
This is Jonny. Jonny is three.
Jonny likes trucks. Jonny likes mud.
And more than anything, Jonny likes the word NO.
“Bath time, Jonny!” calls Mom.
Jonny does not come.
Jonny is under the kitchen table with Eleanor the cat, being very, very quiet.
Eleanor does not like baths either.
“The water is too wet,” says Jonny.
“The drain will eat my toes.
“And my trucks need me.”
Eleanor flicks her tail. She agrees with every word.
Jonny does not want to take a bath.
Mom carries Jonny down the hall.
Jonny kicks. Jonny wiggles.
“Just one toe,” says Jonny.
“Just to check.”
SPLASH!
Jonny doesn’t want to take a bath…
until he gets in it.
A bubble beard. A sailboat. A duck that goes quack.
“Time to get out, Jonny!”
Jonny says his favorite word.
“NO! Five more minutes!”
Jonny is eight.
He has been at the creek all day.
“Baths are for babies,” says Jonny,
dripping mud all the way down the hall.
But a fizzy bath and a comic book are not for babies.
They are for Jonny…
once he gets in.
Jonny is thirteen.
“I’ll shower tomorrow,” he says.
His sister says he smells like a gym sock.
Then he gets in.
Jonny sings. Jonny sings LOUD.
Jonny uses up all the hot water.
Jonny is eighteen.
Four days in the woods.
“Who needs showers?” says Jonny.
The flies agree.
Home again.
Hot water.
Jonny stays in so long the mirror forgets what he looks like.
Jonny is twenty-three.
He has a job, a tie, and a bathtub the size of a shoebox.
“Too tired,” says Jonny.
Knees up. Phone down.
One small candle.
“Okay,” says Jonny.
“This is nice.”
Jonny is twenty-eight. He just ran a marathon.
His coach says an ice bath will help.
“Absolutely not,” says Jonny.
He gets in.
He still doesn’t want it.
Some baths you never get used to.
Jonny is thirty-three.
Now Jonny has a little girl named Rosie.
Rosie is three.
“Bath time, Rosie!”
Rosie is under the kitchen table. “I don’t WANT a bath!”
Jonny smiles. He knows this one.
Jonny carries Rosie down the hall.
Rosie kicks. Rosie wiggles.
“Just one toe,” says Jonny.
“Just to check.”
SPLASH! Now everybody is wet.
Rosie doesn’t want to take a bath…
until she gets in it.
“Five more minutes!”
Much, much later, Grandpa Jonny and Grandma still grumble at bath time.
“Too hot. Too cold.
Too much fuss.”
Then they put their feet in the warm water.
“Ahh,” they say.
“Five more minutes.”
Goodnight, tub.
Goodnight, bubbles.
Goodnight, duck.
See you tomorrow,
at bath time.
Jonny is three, and he does not want to take a bath. The water is too wet. The drain will eat his toes. His trucks need him.
But something happens when Jonny gets in, and it keeps happening at eight, at thirteen, at eighteen, and all the way to the day he hears his own little girl say “I don’t WANT a bath!”
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