I have a confession to make.
I like foofy hand soap. Call it a weakness, call it slightly bent - it's alright, I'm secure in my self-image (as far as you know), but I've got a thing with my hands. A texture thing. I generally hate the feel of denim (Brigetta likes to scratch her jeans just to cause me pain), I don't like the way liquid hand soap makes my hands feel after washing, and just overall disapprove of textures that are half way between rough and smooth. I abhor having long fingernails and will frequently (seriously - watch me play guitar at church some time) use a hard edge or corner to apply slight pressure underneath them, because...well, I have no clue. Brigetta used to be convinced that I was autistic somehow - "on the spectrum," as she would say - I just figured that it was perfectly normal to walk on the balls of my feet over linoleum because I didn't like the way it felt on the rest of my feet. That is normal, isn't it?
But back to hand soap. Today is the second "Daddy Day" in a row for Evelyn and I, and we celebrated by getting a chocolate donut at the "donut store" (Albertson's) after dropping mommy off at work, then went to the mall this afternoon for our official "Daddy Date." This morning, as I was resting on the balls of my feet in the kitchen and washing my hands, I noticed that our last container of foofy hand soap (it foams!) was getting low. The multitask alarm went off in my head, and so, as part of our Daddy Date, we hit up Bath & Body Works for some new, exotic (foofy) scents. The picture above is not, as it may seem, Evelyn shoving the soap nozzle up her nose. Close, but she had enough self-restraint to avoid actual insertion. A friendly associate at the store made her way over to explain that the sale on soaps was a "mix 'n' match" sale (it always is), and proceeded to point out several options that we hadn't yet put to the sniff test. "Yeah, listen - this ain't exactly my first Bath & Body Works rodeo," I wanted to say. I smiled politely instead: "Thanks." Besides, none of the other soaps foamed. We settled on Enchanted Orchid, Japanese Cherry Blossom, and - get this - Midnight Pomegranate. "Oh, man, I can't sleep, it's midnight, I've got work in the morning...what am I gonna do? Hey, that pomegranate looks good..." You can understand my skepticism as I unfastened the top to get a sniff...but, sure as Al Gore invented the internet, it smelled exactly like midnight!
Midnight. What a great marketing word. Milky Way Midnight, Midnight Madness, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I could have added it to the first line of this blog and totally changed the tone. Go ahead, read it out loud to yourself and see if you don't blush. At any rate, it makes for a great soap scent because, let's face it, Pomegranate is just not enough.
What do you do for a soap-sniffing encore? Go see the goldfish, the Mickey store, and find a way to make mac 'n' cheese sound new and exciting, of course! "We're going to go pick up super yummy mac 'n' cheese from a mac 'n' cheese store, Evelyn!" Again the eyes widen - score one for daddy. "OK! We go pick up mac 'n' CHEEEESE!" I am wholly convinced that I could say anything in this tone of voice and garner the same reaction. "Hey Evelyn, we're going to go run over a whole kit of baby rabbits in our van! How's that sound?" You get the picture.
And now she is once again slumbering away to the soothing pitter-patter of rain on the roof while I type up the days adventures. Because of the different schedule this week - parents being out of town and such - there is still a little left to get done for Sunday, and I would be thrilled to get a small nap in myself once that's finished. So for now I wish you, the patient reader, a good day, warmth, shelter, food, and good textures.
4 comments:
Cracks me up that you wrote a whole essay inspired by hand soap. I have to second Brigetta about you being autistic. When we worked together at State Farm...let's discuss...I can still hear you shuffling those calendar magnets...over and over and over. Haha!
Oh man - the calendar magnets! My hands would be black from doing that all day long. I tried not to be too loud about it, but apparently I failed. ;) Come to think of it, my seventh grade english teacher used to scold me for tapping my pencil for the entire class period. She was very good natured about it, all things considered. She retired the following year, though...
Dude I love you but you have issues! haha! Scott is a texture kind of guy too... this really, really cracks me up! Oh, Brigetta, I so feel your pain! :-)
I'm linking over from Deb Isom's blog and am cracking up so hard I have tears running down my face! You are a riot! The foofy soaps... mine,vanilla carmel, or caramel depending on where in the US you may live. Most definitely not the liquid, has to be the foam kind. Hmmm... you wouldn't happen to be from Indiana, would you? It's possilbe we could be related.. I do remember my brothers telling me on several occasions that I had been adopted. Wishes for warm sunny days and foamy soap dreams at night. Okay, that sounded a lot better in my head.
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