Basic Trope: The plumbing diverts the water in the shower and changes the temperature.
- Straight:
- Alice is taking a shower. Her husband Bob comes in to pee, does his business, and flushes the toilet. The water temperature in the shower skyrockets up, causing Alice to yell and shout from behind the curtain.
- Bob is taking a shower, and Alice fills up a bucket of hot water to defrost her car windshield... which makes his shower go cold. Bob shrieks and chatters, leaping out of the shower.
- Exaggerated: Bob is taking a shower and Alice turns on the sink, causing the water in the shower to instantly boil into steam before it even hits Bob.
- Downplayed: Bob takes a small drink, causing Alice to wish to herself that the shower water was a little warmer.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob have old plumbing in their home.
- The story itself takes place in an era where at-the-time modern plumbing did this.
- Inverted:
- A plumbing error results in the shower draining all the water from the toilet when it's activated. Bob decides to take a shower after Alice used the toilet and forgot to flush, resulting in a scream that is heard all over the village.
- A plumbing error causes flushing the toilet to turn the shower on.
- Subverted:
- Bob reaches for the flush, then notices Alice in the shower. He leaves without flushing out of consideration.
- Bob flushes and the water in Alice's shower changes temperature — but only because she almost slipped and grabbed the hot water knob for support at the same time.
- The water goes cold because the heating gas for the block conked out just after Bob flushed.
- Double Subverted:
- But then he goes out to water the vegetable garden, which does cause Alice's shower to scald her.
- ...But when Alice turns the knob back to where it was, it turns out the water is now ice cold.
- Parodied:
- Bob flushes the toilet, and Alice's shower instantly starts spewing flames.
- Alice turns on the washing machine, and Bob instantly freezes into a block of ice from being exposed to his now ice-cold shower water.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob runs the kitchen sink while Alice is showering, and the shower's temperature drops. Carol runs the sprinklers while Alice and Bob take a Shower of Love, but the shower's temperature doesn't change. Alice flushes the toilet while Bob is showering, and the shower's temperature rises.
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob have more modern plumbing in their home, designed to prevent this from happening.
- Alice and Bob live in a hot country near a lake or river that is clean enough that they can bathe in it.
- Enforced: Rule of Funny
- Lampshaded: "Dude, we have got to upgrade our plumbing."
- Invoked: Bob is doing this on purpose as a prank with the faucet in the kitchen, alternating the temperatures to make Alice "sing".
- Exploited:
- "Alice, if you keep loudly Singing in the Shower while I'm in an important Zoom meeting, I am coming in there and flushing the toilet."
- Bob wants to take a hot shower, and the fastest way to heat the water up is to flush the toilet.
- Defied: Bob decides he'll hold it until she's done (of course, if this is a Potty Emergency, he'll either use the toilet without flushing out of sheer desperation or pee somewhere else — out the window, in the garden, in a potted plant, in the drain pipe, at a neighbor's house, etc.).
- Discussed: "Bob always wants to relieve himself when I'm in the shower. I got dry skin after the thirty-eighth time it happened."
- Conversed: "It's hilarious when Alice freezes Bob in the shower!" "More so than when he burns her in the shower?"
- Played for Drama:
- The toilet uses an industrial-strength flush, raising the temperature to the point where Alice suffers some really nasty scalds.
- This happens so many times that Alice decides to Toilet Seat Divorce Bob.
- Bob intentionally runs every device in the house that uses cold water as a form of Domestic Abuse to Alice.
- Alice goes to race out of the shower to scold Bob, but she slips, hits her head on the hard bathroom floor, and either has a severe head injury or dies of head trauma.
- Played for Laughs:
- Alice screams, leaps out of the shower to yell at Bob, remembers she's naked, screams, covers herself, and hurries back into the shower.
- Alice doesn't care that she's naked; she mischievously launches a Full-Frontal Assault on Bob.
- Alice's injuries are treated as amusing.
- Implied: Alice turns on the sink, and seconds later, a miffed, naked, dripping-wet Bob appears, apparently having just leaped out of the shower.
Back to Flushi—GYAAAAAAAAAAHH!
