I classify myself as a pretty smart person. So smart, I must admit, I often laugh at other people who seem to have the common sense of a rabbit when it comes to doing normal every day things. But, like always, karma has a way of biting you in the ass and, let me say, that’s what happened to me recently — although not my ass. Nope. A different sensitive body part. And it all happened because of my running out of soap.
As a freelance writer, I’m often working under deadline. So much so, I sometimes don’t leave the house for days, which means I frequently run out of things like coffee, milk, bread and, yes, soap, quite a lot.
A couple of weeks ago, it happened again. This time, when I went to step in the shower before I got started on my already hectic-sounding day. On this particular day, as my foot heaved itself over the rim of the bath, I happened to glance down towards the porcelain soap holder and realized I’d run out of soap.
Now, I live in Bangkok, Thailand, which, officially, is the world’s hottest city. So, taking a shower without soap is something few people do here. For me, the cleanliness freak, I don’t think I’ve ever taken a shower without soap. Not once in my life. Meaning, as soon as I figured out I didn’t have any, I had to find something else that would do the job almost as well. That’s when I alighted on the idea of using dishwashing detergent, or washing up liquid, as we used to call it in England.
So, I stumbled back out of the bath and headed to the kitchen, where I knew I’d stored three large packets of dish soap I’d just bought a couple of days before. Cutting the top of one open, I wandered back to the bathroom, stepped in the shower, turned on the water and proceeded to lather up. The dishwashing detergent smelled like strawberries, and I soon came out of the shower squeaky clean, smelling fresh, and off I went to begin my writing assignments.
Fast forward a couple of days and, as I was still so busy, I hadn’t yet managed to leave the house. No problem. The dishwashing detergent was more than half full, and I was just as clean as I always was — with my three showers a day, mandated by Bangkok’s heat, of course.
Oddly though, by the end of the second day, i was noticing a slight itching underneath my boobs which, over the next 24 hours, got worse. So bad did the itching get, when I finally stood naked in front of the mirror, it was to notice with horror a thick, red, scaly band of skin underneath both boobs and, yes, it itched like a mother.
Long story short. Apparently, the chemicals used in dishwashing detergent probably should never be used on human skin. They’re so harsh, far harsher than regular soap I might add, that for anyone who doesn’t have skin like an elephant’s hide (and I’m not sure the elephant at the bottom of my street could handle it either), they should never use dishwashing detergent in place of soap.
Once I’d figured out the root of all my problems of course, with my luck, it still took 10 days before the skin underneath my boobs went back to normal and stopped itching. Meanwhile, several times a day I had to lather body lotion around my boobs, making sure I hit that red, itchy and now-inflamed band under them,as it was the only thing that got rid of it.
Thankfully, I finally had time to leave the house and hit the supermarket for a bar of soap and, so necessary do I now deem my soap to be, I bought ten of them. After all, it will be a cold day in hell before I run out of soap again as, heavens knows, I never want to go through that craziness a second time.
And, although it probably goes without saying, I’m not as smart as I think I am. Obviously.