Shower thoughts

I don't put a lot of deep thought into showering, but I do ponder certain imponderables sometimes. Like why, on earth, there is "extract of pearl" in my shampoo. Extract of pearl? Really? What possible benefit could that have other than to allow them to say "contains pearl!" on the label???

But no, this morning I was unable to drift away in my usual fashion because I was wrestling with my soap.

My mother, bless her heart, gave me this bar of soap at Christmas. It has a nice smell – in a sort of perfumey, fussy way – and it has olive oil in it, so it's supposedly moisturizing...it's definitely a soap made for women, you know what I mean? No dude is ever willingly going to use this soap.

That said, it has one serious drawback... it's freakin' enormous! I can't close my hand around it, and using it int he shower is like trying to wash yourself with a greased football! If ever there was a great argument for the use of a competent ergonomics specialist in the manufacturing of soap, this is it.

Look: Who can hold this thing? Dwayne Johnson? Sure, it looks innocent enough sitting there on a towel all by itself.












But in my hand it becomes a toe-crushing, tooth-chipping instrument of torture and humiliation.


If it wouldn't be way too humiliating a showcase of my sadly under-toned and over-flabbed butt, I'd be tempted to take video of myself wrestling with this soap and post it here. It's slapstick comedy. It slips out of my hand and falls on my toes, which is really painful, because the thing weighs roughly the same as a brick. I'm pretty sure this soap is what those Palestinian kids are throwing at the Israeli soldiers. Sometimes I manage to hop out of the way as it's falling, but this leaves me in serious danger of slipping and breaking a hip.

Sure, I can hold it in one hand and rub it with a cloth or bath mitt and then use that to wash, but I may or may not be able to put the soap down one-handed without it shooting off across the tub and ricocheting back to trip me up or smash my toenails. I have to set it down like a tube of nitroglycerin to keep it from escaping. I end up cursing furiously and/or giggling maniacally every time I pick the damn thing up. It tickles me to imagine what I must look like: weirdly rubbing myself, two-handedly, with this big gray thing. It doesn't even look like soap. It looks like an elephant suppository.

Never before in my life have I considered cutting a bar of soap in half, but I'm considering it. What do you use to cut a bar of soap in half? A soap saw? A bread knife? I don't know what would cut through it.

I'd give up and just toss it out, but I'm sure it's pricey stuff, or my sainted mother wouldn't have given it to me. Maybe it is giving her a secret joy imagining me trying to wrestle it into submission every morning.