What will you do if we let you go home, and the plastics all melted

[austin_dern]

Years ago, when I first set up my own independent not-rented-from-the-school apartment in Troy, NY, my parents bought me a little bathroom accessories set. It was a simple set, soap dish, water glass, and toothbrush holder. I didn't use it much since I can't fathom why you'd want to drink water out of the bathroom tap when the kitchen tap isn't farther away, and why you'd want to drink it out of a glass that's, you know, in the path of the aerosol spray from a flushed toilet and washed maybe once a month if you're diligent. I did use the toothbrush holder, although relocated to the kitchen sink, until I moved out, and while I left the soap dish in the bathroom I didn't actually leave soap in it because a wet bar of soap would tend to fuse with the glass and be hard to remove. Removing's important because I'm not one of those guys who touches the soap bar and assumes that's enough; given the chance, I'll lather up this nice foamy cartoon-like ball.

When I left Troy I brought all this home, but left it with my parents rather than take the fragile stuff to Singapore. Plus I was looking at a tight baggage allowance, which makes what I had to do to move out all the more funny, and I had got an electric toothbrush that stands up by itself by that time. They assimilated the articles into their house, although I don't know where the toothbrush holder vanished to. The soap dish stayed in the guest bathroom.

Except this morning as I got up and washed, I wanted to clean up a bit of soap foam that'd fallen on the sink counter and pulled on the hand towel. It was sitting on top of the (empty) soap dish, and my motion sent it flying onto the floor where it smashed into a dozen pieces. I was much more aggravated by this than my parents were; I think they forgot it was originally a present. Dad leapt in with words of caution, and wanted the bathroom mat immediately so he could wash it, and brought out the dustpan, and suggested I put on shoes. Because my socks might not be enough to protect me from the highly visible pieces of broken glass each at least the size of a nickel. I may have been a bit snappish, but I did start the day breaking an old gift from my parents, you know?

It's easy to say this just isn't my weekend for gravity. I think the real lesson is to not clean soap residue off of sink counters.

Trivia: Alvan Clark and Sons observed the companion star to Sirius in 1861 while testing a 19-and-a-half inch refracting telescope ordered by the University of Mississippi, but (due to the war) eventually delivered to the Chicago Astronomical Society. Source: Yankee Science in the Making, Dirk J Struik.

Currently Reading: Project Solar Sail, Edited by Arthur C Clarke.

Comments

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

I didn't use it much since I can't fathom why you'd want to drink water out of the bathroom tap when the kitchen tap isn't farther away.

Well, the medication in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom is more convenient to drink right there. And sometimes you've just dropped your robe and are ready to take you shower and are really thirsty, and the shower water has that weird off taste...

That said, that's why we have a 3-ounce Dixie Cup dispenser in the bathroom. Sanitarily disposable, and 3 ounces is all the water one needs from the bathroom tap before the kitchen becomes worth the walk.

--Chiaroscuro

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

But I wouldn't keep medicine in the medicine cabinet anyway: the bathroom is too variable in humidity, and to a lesser extent heat, to be a good place to store medicines. Mouthwash is about the limit of what might be sensibly stored there, and that's not really medicine.

I can't remember offhand being all that thirsty just before showering, but then I shower after brushing my teeth, and that's in the kitchen, and you see how that simplifies the whole chain of events.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

But I wouldn't keep medicine in the medicine cabinet anyway: the bathroom is too variable in humidity, and to a lesser extent heat, to be a good place to store medicines.

Er.. then why do they put the medicine cabinet there, then? I can't imagine the humidity is that bothersome through a sealed bottle.

Admittedly, I have me medications distributed across three rooms. Athsma-related meds are in a drawer in my bedroom, prescripton medication and cough syrup stays in the the kitchen, OTC meds like Tylenol, Cloraseptic, Calamine Lotion, Neosporin.. those stay in the bathroom. Now, of those, only the Tylenol requires water mind.. but for those, the bathroom seems a sensible storage place.

At risk of it seeming an accusatory question, why exactly do you brush your teeth in the kitchen?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how I got started brushing my teeth in the kitchen. I think it started when I accidentally put the toothpaste in the fridge as I unpacked groceries, and by the time I found the toothpaste that night I was (naturally) in the kitchen, and I found I liked refrigerated toothpaste, at least when it was warm out. Now, I'm brushing in the kitchen because my parents have one of those near-boiling-water taps in the kitchen sink, and I'd much rather brush with that than with the ice-cold water the bathroom tap runs for the first two minutes after you turn the water on.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

Refrigerated toothpaste, how curious. Don't think I've ever tried that.

I prefer cold water over warm for brushing my teeth, which usually means shave first then brush as Cold--->hot takes a bit but hot--->cold is instantaneous.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

If you like cold water, probably the refrigerated toothpaste would work for you. Some flavors refrigerate much better than others, though.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Breaking something is an awful feeling. We have lost a couple of really beautiful Christmas ornaments thanks to my fumbling fingers. And I live in fear that a particular vase -- made by an actual artist and bought at a respected gallery up north -- will get knocked off its plant stand in the dining room. A vivid picture of it smashing into a thousand pieces has played through my mind more than once.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Oh, gads. i'd be terrified around that. I have a hard enough time with this cute little Venetian painted face/mask thing that my parents gave me; for months I just kept it wrapped up in its packing tissues inside a bag. Finally I put it flat on the dresser next to my television, a spot I'd basically never touch, but I was still scared of it smashing. About the same reason has kept me from hanging a Pogo poster my sister got in a lovely framed form a few summers back, and that's an even more irrational fear since the frame is nothing important.