How Soap Slivers Can Unhinge Mom...and other stuff
I'm not Entirely Sure whether Mom finds herself More Easily Unhinged these days because of Stuff: Coronacootie. Or whether it's just because her Natural Go-To is Fucking-Mental! Let's face it: we know Mom is given to Flights of Fancy, Fantastical Figments of Fevered Imagination, Camp-Fire Hyperbole and Foul-Mouthed Diatribes. So, is it Possible that the Recent Un-Glueing of Mom over a Sliver of Soap is Merely More of The Same? Or is it that Mom has Reached a Point of Permanent Ungluedness?
Yes. I know. WTACTUALFUCK?
This is a picture that Google tossed out when Mom went looking for a picture of a Sliver of Soap. HOW does this EVEN begin to relate to SOAP?!! (This must mean that Google is Equally Unhinged.)
And here is a picture (also from Google) of Slivers of Soap. They are Quite Simply Terrifying.
See, it's like this. We live, as you know, in 37 feet of Noahbago. Our Winnebago was dubbed The Noahbago on account of all the animals living in it - and here Mom is wont to insist that amongst those rank Dad. Only, now it's Just me, Moyo, (if we don't count Dad) in The Bago with Mom and Dad. Because The Bastards - JesusJones and Fatfuck have been officially adopted by Mom and Dad's Girl who lives in Calgary. We MISS them.
But we know it's a Better Place for them right now because of Uncertainties and When-The-Actual-Fucks of our permanent residence status and What-Will-Come-Nexts. The Bastards are in a Happy Place with Mom and Dad’s Calgary Girl and her fiancé - and they send us pictures of them Almost Every Single Day.
It IS true that there IS something Missing in The Bago - there is Nothing Quite like the Cuddle of Cat - even IF it’s at 3:06 AM and you’re tying to Sleep and Cat is trying to get in your face because HE is a awake. But there we go - The Bastards are Calgarians now and we are happy that they are happy, even if it gives Mom a Lump in her throat the size of Patagonia.)
Anyway. We live in 37 feet of space. Some of you will have Followed our Epic Adventure which has brought us to here - which is Chilliwack, British Columbia. We are Here on account the Winter, which Is Coming (again!), is Kinder. (Insofar as ANY Canadian Winter can be kind...) And when you live in a Bago, you need Kind Winters.
We are BOONDOCKING on a farm. This means we are Parked here. Under the cover of a Big Shed Overhang. We have water. We have lights. We even have our own sewerage pit - which Dad and The Farmer dug and On Top of Which, Mom planted her Veggie Garden. Which has afforded her much Pleasure and Amazement. On account Never Ever in All her Born Days has Mom Gardened - and here she is picking Snow Peas and Spinach, making Lotions and Potions (just like a Witchy Thing) out of Calendula and Chamomile, talking to the lettuces, beets and carrots and exclaiming Joyously over the sunflowers in all their Gayous, Joyous, Riotious Glory - and whispering encouragement to the Pumpkins as they lay about on the vines, gathering their plumpness and colour.
The Veggie Garden. Atop the Sewerage Pit. And before you start Up-Chucking, there IS a heavy wooden cover thingy over the pit itself. Atop of which is laid sheets of corrugated iron. And then soil. All of which is a Bit of a Pity. Those Veggies would be HUMONGOUS if they could but dip their roots...
Anyway, I digressed. Again.
Soap: slivers of...
In The Bago, we have a bathroom. The fact that it is about 1/2m squared shouldn’t impact upon the Necessary Gratitude for having an Inside Bog, Moyo says Mom when contemplating this space.
Look, Moyo, she says. We have a basin here, and if you swing around 360 degrees, look! There’s The Bog in all its Dubious Glory. Careful, mind that you don’t sit forward too quickly when ensconced - you could give yourself brain-damage on the basin counter. And, look, Moyo, here’s the Shower...
... which is about 0.02cm squared. Also? You have to be a midget to be able to stand upright properly in it, just about. And Mom is…well, Mom is Not Small. Mom long ago lost her Svelte Sleekness and now rather more resembles a Beluga Whale. In Breeding Season.
So, fitting into The Bago’s Shower, prettily glassed in as it may well be, is an Act of Courage. And Despair. And sometimes? It’s an Act of Contrition, too. For all the Crap Eaten leading up to this story. (Although Mom is more likely to say stuff like JAYSUS!! and JESUSTAPDANCINGCHRIST and/or CHRISTONACRACKER than offer up HailMaryFullOfGraces in her Contrition Contortions. Mom is Nothing if Not Irreverent. What she lacks is a Good-Mouth-Washing-Out with SOAP!!!)
And, Mom says Moyo? You know I prefer me a bath, anyway. Like a deep, deep, DEEP bath. In which I can Loll. And Read. And into which I can Drop my Reading material if it comes to that, Moyo.
She says This Showering Lark is the Pits, Moyo. In Any shower, but most especially in This One.
She says: Showers make my hair wet. And given I’ve So Much of Hair, that doesn’t please me best.
And yes, Mom KNOWS about Shower Caps. She used to have A Shower cap. Once.
Which Repeatedly and Mysteriously Filled with water. And one too many Attempts to Don said Water filled Shower Cap and being Doused in Fucking Tundra-like Iced Water ended all that.
Mom couldn’t be Arsed to remember to check to empty out the cap - which, as it turned out, filled only because Bloody Dad used the Bloody Shower InBloodyBetween and it was his Bloody Showering which Filled the Bloody Shower Cap with Bloody Water - and so she Gave It Up. Which all means that her hair gets wet. And then she gets Moody.
What Mom THINKS she looks like in a Shower cap.
and what she Actually LOOKS like in a Shower cap.
Did you know you can get shower caps for your ears? (Thanks, Google!)
Possibly the Very Best Way To Wear A Shower Cap. (Google has been So Very Helpful Today.)
On the subject of Hair. Mom does have to relent and wash her hair from time to time. And washing it in a 0.03cm squared space has its challenges.
Which brings me, Moyo, to the Slivers of Soap bit of my story.
On Monday, Mom had to Wash Her Hair. Which is Quite Singularly the Least Possible Romantic hair. Ever. Curly. Frizzy. Very definitely Not Flat. (and she says about that that she feels she should burn a few shampoo selling stores as a result. On account her dry, frizzy, UNflat hair rather lets the side down a bit. But all this is For Another Story if you’re keen to read stories about StupidArse politics….)
Mom’s hair makes knots in individual strands. And Brushing it requires the Fortitude Necessary for doing the Iditarod on Bloodied Stumps. Also? It necessitates a Steady Stream of Expletives and Blasphemous Profanity, otherwise it isn't Being Done Right. (as evidenced by any Mom Brushing Her Hair brushing session witnessed) And as soon as she finishes brushing it? It knots again.
(How Mom lost her Fabulous Hairbrush needs to be told here: Mom spent a Small Fortune on a Very Special Hairbrush pressed upon her the single time she ventured to a Hairdresser in the previous five years. Said Hairdresser assured her THIS was the Brush for Her Kind Of Hair. Which is, as we have already established, Dry, Frizzy, Curly, Knotty, Unromantic, Very Definitely NEITHER Flat Nor Fine {and No amount of shampoo sporting store ransacking and burning is going to be changing the simple fact that Mom has Hair, as her beautiful African friend Buyi suggested, that is Suggestive of being of Mixed-Race in-and-of-its-very-own-self.}
So, that Hair Brush. Mom carefully and lovingly toted it All the Way from Africa to be Employed Once a Week as a Yet Another Act of Contrition. Because that Fucking Expensive Hair Brush? The one intended for Hair Like Mom's? ... she might just as well use a small piece of wood with nails driven through it. Same difference. Cheaper, too.
So, having brought it with her notwithstanding, Mom used it a Couple of Times. And then it Went AWOL.
Now, remember, we live in 37 solid feet of home. That's it. 37 feet. Just where in the hot-diggety-dang-hell can One Hairbrush hive off to in such a small space that it cannot be located? But Un-located it remained. For MONTHS.
Until Mom had an Inanimate Object Tantrum with the door of the small cupboard under the bathroom sink. These tantrums require Kicking The Crap Out of The Offending Object until the Kicker subsides into a whimpering, soggy, often bleeding mess - and the offending Kickee remains unfazed and recalcitrant.
Mom put her Other Hairbrush (the one bought at The Dollar Store and intended as a replacement, at $1.25 for the Rudely Expensive Special Hairbrush-which-wasn't) into the cupboard and closed the door. The door popped open. The hairbrush fell out. Mom put it back. She closed the door. The door popped open. The hairbrush fell out. Mom repeated this a few times until it necessitated that she kick the Living Shit out of that cupboard door AND throw the hairbrush as hard as she could into the cupboard. Two things happened. One: the door popped open again. And Two: the hairbrush disappeared.
Literally.
It vanished.
Getting on her knees - which is and of itself Quite an Act of Contrition, too - Mom stared cautiously into that small cupboard (from which hung the Resolutely OPEN door). No Hairbrush. Loads of Other Shit, but NO Hairbrush.
Closer examination allowed Mom to note a very small, very discreet GAP in the back of the cupboard. There that Gap sat - like some Cupboard-Black-Hole. In abject reluctance, Mom stuck her hand into the Gap. God alone only knew what was INSIDE that Cupboard-Black-Hole {and Mom was under No Illusions that she would discover the Great Train Robbery Haul in there - nor even her Grandmother's MISSING Jewellery, even if she did hope to find, at the very least, a map marked with an V for Vindication indicating where the missing jewellery might be...but Spiders could be a Challenge. Also Freaky Cupboard-Lurking-Hairbrush-Eating Thingies.}
Bravely inserting her hand...up to the shoulder...into that GAP, Mom felt around and FOUND THE AWOL HAIRBRUSH!! Also some Lintballs and an Old, Very Dry, Very Small Sliver of...soap!)
Back to my story: Mom's Hair. There is No Running of Fingers Lovingly and Barbara-Cartland-Novelly-Romantically through Mom’s hair. Brushing it is a Torture to Be Endured about Once A Week, when Mom HAS to wash her hair. (And don’t tell her she should cut it off - she says: Short hair would make me look like a Tick, Moyo. You know. Small Head on a Big, Fat Body.) And washing it? IN that 0.03 square shower? It’s a Trial of Monumental Proportion, Moyo, and Not for The Lily-Livered!
Mom's Hair. With thanks to SnapChat. For making it look Interesting, if Not Fine & Flat...
Usually Mom Just About Manages to Complete the Gauntlet Of Shower Intact. Though Breathless and a Tad Grumpy, she manages to exit the shower with her hair AND all her bits squeaky clean - and without mishap.
Not so this Monday.
On Monday Mom was unglued by the Sliver of Soap that rests in the hanging thingy on the wall of the shower.
It Fell Through the Fucking Bars of the Sodding Soap-dish. It landed at her fucking feet. It slipped and slid all over the place.It kept blocking the fucking drain hole. The water began to fill the foot part of the shower stall. Bubbles began to form and threaten to spill out into the 0.7 metres squared floor space of the Bago Bathroom. Shampoo kept going in Mom’s eyes. Her eyes burned. Water kept going up her nose. Or down it dependent upon the position she was in at the time as she tried to retrieve that sliver of soap. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn't see. Hair blinded her. Hair went down her throat. And Water and Bubbles kept welling up. And she Sodding-well couldn’t Bend Over to Retrieve that Sodding Sliver of Soap.
On account her Butt is Too Big and the Shower Stall is Too Small and bending over in it means Fearing Becoming Permanently Wedged Into Place. As the water Swells and Bubbles and Overflows. Which would mean Having to Contort into a Space 0.7metres squared to Clean it All Up.
So, what happened? Mom cried.
She wept and wailed and gnashed her teeth. She did it in that 0.03 cm squared shower. She did it when she got out into the 0.4 metre square floor space outside the shower. She did it whilst she dried herself off. And she did it even more when she tried to get her clothes on, which is Always an Exercise in Contortion and Foul Temper anyway, because Clothes Stick to Damp Skin like Shit Sticks To Blankets.
And she did it afterwards, too. Until she had Eyes that looked like…like…like the butt-end of an Overfed Hippopotamus. All because that Sliver of Soap Unglued her.
P.S. Mom wants to know: Does anyone else have a Grandmother who would look at you sideways and reach for a SLIVER OF SODDING SOAP if you so much as looked a teeny-tiny bit peaky?
Gran Truly Believed in a "Seepie*" as a Cure-All.
* seepie - Afrikaans for a small bit of soap. as in a suppository. Specifically. Small wonder Mom becomes unglued by things SOAP. Especially those Small Bits Which Cause Bubbles in ....DrainHoles.