Old Coot is in the lather

I started this gripe in 2005, Article #86. Now, 17 years later, I’m still complaining, Article #993. It’s because I miss soap. I miss bar soap, to be specific. We have liquid soap at our house, even in the shower. It’s a revolution that’s taken over the country. I don’t know how it happened. I wasn’t paying attention. One day the soap dish was gone; in its’ place was a liquid soap pump in a decorator jar. I feel like I lost a good friend.

Bar soap is a hapless victim in the war between the sexes. Apparently, it irritated millions of women over the past several centuries as it sat in soap dishes covered in grime and handprints. Male hand washers never learned to clean up the soap after using it. We never even noticed that it was filthy. We washed, we dried, and we went on our merry way. First our mothers, and then our wives cleaned up after us. It took ten seconds to rinse off the soap and put it back in the dish, but we never caught on. Now, it’s too late; our bar of soap is gone. 

I hate liquid soap dispensers. I get my hands wet and then reach over to the pump, hoping against hope that some soap is left in the container. You can’t tell by looking. This was never a problem with bar soap. A quick glance was all it took to know there was enough soap to get the job done. Now, it’s a crapshoot. I pump; nothing happens. I pump again, and nothing. Six more pumps and a dribble of soap finally makes it to the tip of the nozzle. Now, I can wash my hands. The pump is filthy from all the contact with my wet dirty fingers. I scrub and shrug. 

The liquid soap isn’t as good as bar soap. You can’t dig your nails into it to do a good job on the dirt that gets trapped underneath. It smells funny, too, like lilacs or oranges or something pleasant. Soap should smell awful. It shouldn’t make you want to eat it.

Our latest dispenser ejects a stream of foam; you don’t have to work up the lather with your hands. The soap company figured it’s too hard for customers to do it. I miss all the old bar soaps: Octagon, sand-laden Lava for grease-laden hands, Yellow Soap to bite on when you said those words that made our mothers cringe, Palmolive, Dove, Dial, Camay, and Ivory. It was a bar soap world, now overtaken by lather in a jar.

Send comments or complaints to mlessler7@gmail.com.