A Soap Opera.
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I write this in relief. Why? Let’s find out. I use handmade soaps made by a cousin who does a fabulous job of it. I abhor the regular lux cinthol things and only tolerate Dove to an extent in the commercially available category. I am not a man of limited means but not of unlimited either. There are some things I will splurge on. Good food, clothes, soap and hotel rooms. Rest I will take pretty much anything in my stride. My skin is perennially dry, it’s a pain in the behind to maintain. Am I sounding too feminine? Pardon me but these constant talks with my wife about the importance of well maintained skin have rubbed off on me. My skin now if I get even a little behind on a moisturizing regimen as ordered by my wife it’s starts looking like parched earth starved of rains for years and resembles the leathery cracked sheathing of helpers and masons who I worked with being an interior designer. Hence the handmade soaps.
She makes them to my specifications with more shea butter than soap and my skin loves them. I get them made in batches of five. I had on run out and unwrapped a new one. Hefty thing smells good and looks great. With a slang on my lips I went to have a bath and the soap felt glorious it’s perfume permeating every inch of the bathroom obliterating other myriad unpleasant smells that linger for quite a while after you do things. I lathered up luxuriant it felt and reluctantly rinsed off as my wife was banging the door wanting to use the bathroom.
Everyday I went for my bath with a smile on my on my face looking forward to the soap gloating over the little indulgences I could afford. This went on and I noticed that the soap was a little more resistant to wear than the other she makes which wither out very rapidly. Happy that I was getting my money’s worth as I lathered on and the soap very slowly was loosing its heft. This went on days on end and now I was getting a little tired. The whole point of using handmade soaps is that you get a new experience with every new unwrap, the color, perfume, shape and feel all different. And I look forward to the new one relegating small slivers left of earlier ones for hand washes after the big jobs. But this soap refused to die. Yes die. I kept bathing and it kept lasting. I was on two baths a day in a vain effort to wear down the soap and demote it for big jobs. But it refused to wither away lasting and lasting the wear down painstakingly slow.
Weeks passed anc the anomaly of the soap that it was still was in the category of showers, I had started looking at it with hatred every time I net in the bathroom giving it baleful glares even while not using it. Why did I just not throw it away you will ask but dear readers it had become a my mortal enemy and it was going to be a fight to the finish. Either my skin was going to suffer much to the chagrin of my wife or the soap was getting rubbed down the drain. Days passed and finally I could see a glimpse of hope as the soap was getting where I wanted it to be, for the big jobs. And finally I delegated it to a corner of the soapbox while unwrapping a new one. But the conundrum now was that as it was getting used only once or twice a day and only for hand washing it was stubbornly hanging on to dear life refusing to die a honorable death. It had become my arch nemesis this tiny round sliver, I had resorted to multiple hand washes my palms now pockmarked with dry indentations but the horror of a soap refused to wear out. I threw it to the corner of the bathroom one day hoping that the maid would do the honors and throw it away but to my dismay it had regained its place in the soap dish.
I felt it was doing this on purpose now. Bubbles of mirth emanating from the evil thing every time I picked it up. Obsessed with it I had become sometimes even resorting to going in the bathroom and glaring at it hoping for super vision to burn it into oblivion. Time had come for demoting the other soap too and a third one was unveiled. Now two slivers and a bar were jostling for space in the same soap dish. I even began to take my baths again with it, it was going down but the pace was agonizingly slow almost non existent. I had by now made up my mind to throw in the towel and flush the damn thing down. While the shower that day it slipped out of its encroached on space and fell in a corner. I decided against picking it up and give my fate a chance. All my hopes were pinned on the maid, I was rooting for here like I had done for none other.
That evening with great trepidation I ventured in the bathroom and lo and behold the disgusting thing was not there. It had disappeared I hope into the septic tank where it belonged. Bubbling away in putrid eternity.
Till the next one.
veeru.
