 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| In the PBS series The 1900 House a family was assigned the task of living according to conditions at the turn of the last century. The thing that caused the lady of the house to snap, completely breaking the rules of the show, was soap. Shampoo, to be exact. Considering how much she hated her corset, and that the hot water heater could cause the house to blow up at any moment, discovering that soap could send her completely over the edge was indeed a revelation.
I too, carrying on the tradition, have collected a surprising amount of soap. Perhaps a year's supply. Perhaps a lifetime supply. I really am not certain, because it is always stashed in my linen closet. Even my hobbies support my soap habit. Gardening is a particularly grubby sport. It is not unusual for me to come in from the garden caked in mud from head to toe, although I am never certain how the dirt finds its way through my shoes and socks. The only cure for a day out in the garden is a bubble bath. In our Life Balance product for Palm OS, one of the starter tasks in the Outline is "Take a bubble bath." Indeed my linen closet contains no less than a dozen different varieties of bubble bath. Lavender, Mango, Buttermilk. A different scent for every occasion of cleanliness. Ah, bathtub bliss. Calgon, take me away... Imagine my delight when I recently received a gift of Eucalyptus soap from Kangaroo Island in Australia. It came in a humble plastic bag, stapled shut, with a label from the Emu Ridge Eucalyptus and Bushcraft Souvenirs shop. It has a line drawing of a kangaroo carved into the top of the soap, with the letters K and I. It is white, and covered in crumbly soap dust. It smells... like no other soap I've ever encountered! Wonderful. Exotic. I envision the well groomed koala bear scrubbing happily in a tub eating Pez and Eucalyptus leaves as the steam billows around his tufted ears. Soap from the other side of the world. My grandfather would be mightily impressed. I can hardly contain my glee at adding this prize to my collection. I worry briefly that this new acquisition will fall into the category of "good soap." Too precious to use, something to be hoarded and sniffed at occasionally. Saved for guests. Then I happily recall that soap is soap, not diamonds or gold bullion! No matter how rare and unusual, it doesn't belong in a safe deposit soap box. It belongs at the edge of the tub or next to the sink. Its own place of honor and utility. As luxuries go, soap is not in the same category as a sports car or a private jet. A private jet takes lessons, a place to park it, the desire to leave terra firma. The car requires gasoline and insurance. Soap requires so little. Some water, a basin, a loofah, a little peace and quiet. No matter what the stock market or my bank balance might say to the contrary, looking at the soap sitting on my linen closet shelf, I always get a sense of unreasonable extravagance. I am lavishly fortunate in suds and lather. I'm a woman who is rich in soap! Filthy rich! |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I previously believed that my family was alone in its fixation on the glories of modern soap! My grandfather was a salesman, and he traveled all his life. He always took soap with him because he was allergic to lanolin, but he never failed to come back with more soap than he left with, collecting it from the best hotels around the country. We had a whole drawer dedicated to the loot from his trips. There was always plenty of Neutrogena and Ivory, of course. But there were also adorable round soaps wrapped in neatly pleated paper with gold seals. There were soaps in shapes of lemons and seashells. Fish shaped soap that flew out of your hands as though they were alive and you had rudely scooped them up from a trout brook. Soap on a rope! Of course there were also little bottles of shampoo. Sewing kits. Shoeshine cloths. But the thing that overflowed from the drawer was an abundance of sweetly smelling soap. 
