On the way to the community college this morning I caught a whiff of something unpleasant and leaned over to sniff at my son who was riding next to me in the passenger seat. It wasn't him. Sam looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "It's me, isn't it," I said and he nodded. It's finally happened. I have worse hygiene than my kids.
When I was young, in my single digits, I showered as infrequently as I could get away with, or whenever my mother caught me and forcibly threw me into the tub. Dirt didn't bother me a bit, especially when it was on me. As I grew older, cleaning myself up got to be more important, so that it wasn't unusual to try to sneak in extra showers beyond the 5 minute one we were each allowed by my father in the mornings.
Dad not only timed us, he'd start flushing the toilets one after the other if we overran our official limit of hot water. And he was so proud of his own tried and true method for getting clean, that he used to demonstrate it to us when we got to be teenagers, acting out all the steps.
He started out by showing us how much shampoo to use, pointing to a nickel in his palm. "You don't need a lot of shampoo! Just a little bit is plenty! Wash your hair first and then, while you're rinsing your hair, take the soap and then work your way down all the way to your feet. By the time you're done your hair is all rinsed and you're done. It shouldn't take you any longer than five minutes!"
Bless the man, he was paying for the hot water contained in two 40 gallon hot water heaters, and there were ten kids to get clean and out the door every morning besides himself. But back then, we didn't use the shower just to get clean, we used it to wake up as well. So it is with my own children now. I get them out of bed, but it isn't until they're midway through their morning ablutions that they actually become conscious.
Maybe the reason that I'm so much less showered than they are these days is that they've actually got places to go. I'm merely the means for them to get there, so cleanliness doesn't really enter into it.
Sam's got classes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Nick and Sam have clubs on Mondays and Wednesdays. Already they have reason to jump in the shower five days a week. Some of these classes/clubs have (gasp!) girls in them.
I, on the other hand, am meeting no one of any significance whatsoever in person in any way. I'm a stay at home, work at home, trapped at home mother and destined to remain that way evermore. I've tried looking for work away from my cozy confines and no matter how carefully I craft my resume it always sounds like I'm being smug about the fact that I've managed to make a living for the past twenty years without benefit of office politics and a dress code.
Well, maybe the dress code thing could be useful, especially on those days like today, when I sniff my own armpits and realize that it's not just my t-shirt that's stinking, but the sports bra underneath has that unmistakable sulphurous vapor that comes when you forget to remove a load of laundry for more than a half an hour after the final spin cycle while living in a tropical climate.
And, I'm sick today, which means I'm feverish, which means all of me is warmer than usual and it makes everything about me that much more pungent. Truly, my son is heroic in his efforts not leap out of the car and attempt to flag down any passing stranger to carry him the rest of the way in to campus, rather than ride another mile in the car with me. At least it's not raining. We roll down the windows. The drivers behind us shrivel and die.
