Drop The Soap!

There are so few pleasures in life; after 50 there are fewer yet. So I relish the small things, like a long hot soapy shower with a bar of my special floral scented soap. I don't buy them for myself. They're too expensive. Some of those soaps can cost between $8 and $12 a bar! So I wait for a holiday when gifts are exchanged, and the first thing on my list is: scented soaps. When I get them, I hide them in my underwear drawer.

Before my shower, I unwrap the soft white bar of soap, press the tissue paper to my face and inhale the fragrant floral scent. I roll the smooth dry bar of soap around in my hands for a few seconds, cup my hands to my face and inhale deeply. Ahhhh.... I am already beginning to relax.

This soap is so rich, the lather foams up like whipped cream on my skin. I'm giddy with the lusty floral scent that mixes with the steamy water sending a beautiful freesia scent throughout the room, down the hall and into my bedroom. I smell my skin as I leave the shower. I smell like a walking flower.

When my husband comes to bed that night, he glances my way and raises his eyebrow. This silent communication for his romantic intentions is accepted with my smile, but something is amiss. Am I correct? Does he, too, smell like a flower?

"Come closer," I tell him. He smiles broadly, misinterpreting my urgent command.

"Did you use my scented soap?!" I ask, my nose sniffing his shoulder.

"I used the soap in the shower." He answers, dreamily, moving in closer.

"But was it my soap?" It is an accusation now, as it has already been confirmed by my superior olfactory senses.

He backs away a little, sensing the mood shift, "I used the only soap in the shower."

I leap out of bed to see how this could have happened. And there it was. My beautiful sensual floral scented soap sitting in the soap holder. How, I wonder, could a man who can't find the mayonnaise jar in the refrigerator, when it is sitting on the shelf in front of his nose, ever find my tiny round bar of scented soap that I hide behind two voluminous bottles of shampoo and conditioner??

Needless to say, the mood is lost as I begin a lecture on the price of that soap, my need to have my own feminine things - separate from the men in this family - and my inability to find him sexually appealing when he smells like a gentle flower. I doubt he will ever use my soap again, and I vow to be more vigilant, to check the soap holder every night and be sure to replace "their" soap when they run out.

But mishaps happen, and I'm not as sharp as I used to be. Otherwise I wouldn't be screaming through the bathroom door this morning as my son was taking his 45 minute shower. It stopped me dead in my tracks as I was making my bed: the steamy scent of my floral soap, swirling around my head.

I pounded on the bathroom door yelling, "Drop the soap!"

"I'll be done in a minute," he replied.

"Drop the soap!" I repeated as I banged on the door.

"What?" he answered through the thick flower scented steam.

"Drop the soap!" At this point I was almost in tears as I imagined my tiny round soap reduced to a sliver and then to just a few bubbles drifting down the drain.

"I can't hear you; wait 'till I get out," he answered.

I thought about setting off the smoke alarms, but he would ignore that too. There were too many times that I burned the toast and no one took them seriously anymore.

What can I do? Give up the fight? Go back to using that bland bar of Ivory soap? How do you go back to drinking water with dinner after you've sipped the Beaujolais? Shall I start carrying my soap back and forth to the shower, like students do in college dorms?

Maybe I should just calm down and accept the fact that these mishaps occur from time to time, pick your battles, as they say, and be grateful for other small victories- like the fact that they all leave the toilet seat down.