Daily showering is such a vicious cycle. Everyday, back in the shower, shampoo the head, hold on to the sliver of soap like greased pig, pick up shampoo bottle again - did I do this part? It's exhausting. If it weren't for the growing need for my shower to need a shower, aka mold accumulation, nothing would change at all.
I know some of you don't choose or say you don't need to shower daily, I believe I have stood behind you in line at the grocery store, well I am not one of you. With me the problem isn't about the smell. It's that I have fine hair, oily skin, and I live in Florida. If I do not hose down daily I look like I've slipped into a vat of oil at the Canola Factory.
When I was a teenager wearing a permanent bag on my head due to pimples, my mother would say when I got older I would love my oily skin, because I wouldn't have wrinkles. She said I had a built in moisturizer. Well, I'm four forty, I still get pimples, I now have wrinkles, and also I have the oil vat part.
For some reason, writing about hosing myself down, reminds me of a spa treatment I had once. I decided to get a body loofah at this old world spa an hour from my house. The spa facility was just as beautiful as I imagined, the treatment room was another story. It looked like an auto mechanic's garage. After doing a quick once around I began to get the creeping suspicion that nothing good could happen in this space. The only furniture in the room was a gray hard plastic surgical table in the center of the room. My instinct told me to run, but before I could act, in walked Helga. Actually I don't remember her real name but Helga should give you the proper visual. She was about six feet tall with hands like oven mitts, and either she was wearing shoulder pads under her uniform or she was a VERY big boned girl.
She walked over to me and uttered one monosyllabic phrase, "Get on table". Then she asked, "Do you need to keep towel?" almost like she was challenging me like I was the new girl on the prison block. Well I didn't know if I needed my towel. I didn't think I needed my pepper spray when I left the house that morning but things change. The towel may be my only remaining line of defense. I actually began to think back to my brother snapping me with a towel as a kid. Did he twirl it clockwise or counterclockwise?
I decided my best move was to act tough and toss the towel aside. I had bluffed my way through many sales presentations in my career. I could bluff my way through Helga. The next thing I knew Helga had grabbed a scrub brush and preceded to scrub me within an inch of my life.
As the torture continued I began to notice little things like, Helga's outfit looked a lot like the uniforms I saw the cleaning crew wearing on my way in to the spa....Is that an SOS pad in her hand?....I think there's a jar of turtle wax sitting on the shelf behind her?....Why is there a big drain in the middle of the cement floor?....and why the heck does this Frankenstein table have wheels on it? Among Helga's other stellar qualities, she had the grace of a hippo. Every time she walked around the side of the table to gain better access to my remaining tissue she would bump the side of the table, sending the table and me skidding across the wet floor until she grabbed us with her Grizzly Bear claw and abruptly stopped us. My spa treatment had become like some awful ride at a $2.00 carnival. I was waiting for the loud rock music to kick in.
Well, eventually every one of my skin cells had been removed and Helga put down her Brillo pad and asked me to stand up. It appeared the worst was over until I saw her grab a hose. Wait where did that come from? She proceeded to hose me down like a circus animal. Then she dried her hands with - MY TOWEL - and left.
So maybe this is the reason why I'm not so excited about my daily ritual of showering. Maybe I'm having Helga flashbacks? Come to think of it I don't like to scrub pots either.
Lisa Alex Gray
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