What gets my goat even more, however, is when
the soap stinks. And it very often does. And when it does, it almost always
stinks in the same way! I can guess why the manufacturer makes it: people
manifestly buy it and presumably it’s cheap. But I don’t know why people buy
it, because it smells so terrible that if you knew beforehand what it was going
to smell like, you wouldn’t use it. You’d clean your hands with the thermal energy from
more hot water and the kinetic energy from rubbing your hands instead of the chemical energy from the soap. I assume that one kind of energy cleans about as well as another.
So there are a few things that annoy me about
this situation. One is that it makes my hands smell bad. Bad enough to take to
my blog about it, even though I don’t write much anymore. Another thing that
annoys me is that I’m being punished for washing my hands, when those Neanderthals
I mentioned at the start of the post are getting off scot free. And their
uncleanliness is as likely to make someone else ill as it is to affect them, if
my understanding of epidemiology is correct. I’m being punished for being a
responsible citizen, and that’s not cool. And the third thing is that I’m not
even getting a choice in the matter. They’re only able to skimp on soap by
doing what effectively amounts to playing a mean trick on me: “Hey, why don’t
you try this soap?” “Er, OK.” “Ha! Now your hands stink! Now buzz off, stinky
hands!” That’s how I feel in the moments immediately after I’ve taken my chances
with an unfamiliar soap dispenser and the familiar stink wafts up from my
hands. I try to wash it off, but it’s too late. I guess I could start carrying
some hand sanitizer around with me, but I don’t feel I should have to. Maybe
that’s what the Neanderthals are doing.
