“Looks like you need a new pouf,” my wife said as she watched me struggle in the shower.
“I need a new what?” I asked.
“You need another shower pouf,” my wife said, pointing at the thing I’ve always called a body scrubber.
“Oh, you mean I need a new body scrubber,” I said, correcting the way she was pronouncing body scrubber.
As corrections go, this was a small one. But I’m a stickler for words and calling a body scrubber a shower pouf was something I could not abide.
“Vince, it’s called a pouf,” my wife said as she giggled. “You’re a pouf man.”
“I’ll go back to using a washcloth before I’ll call my beloved body scrubber a pouf,” I shouted.
“Anything you say, pouf man,” my wife said as she left the bathroom.
I spent the rest of my shower cursing my wife and looking at what the switch from bar soap to body wash has meant in my life.
When my wife first suggested I move to body wash from bar soap, I resisted. I told my wife she could have my bar of soap when she pried it from my cold, dead hand.
Despite my objections, my wife bought a bottle of body wash anyway. I refused to use the body wash. It sat on the shower caddy for months until one day I found myself without bar soap.
I couldn’t even take the dozen or so slivers of bar soap that I had on the shower caddy and fuse them into a ball that produced lather. So, it was either use body wash or nothing. And believe you me, after a hard day of writing, I had to use body wash to wash away the grime and filth that comes from spending the day writing.
I squirted body wash onto my washcloth and scrubbed away as I normally did. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be so I stopped fighting it. I had officially made the switch from bar soap to body wash.
One day, I stepped into the shower and found my washcloth missing. It had been replaced by a body scrubber. I used the body scrubber, but did so with the understanding that under no circumstances would the switch from bar soap to body wash turn me into the kind of man obsessed with personal grooming products and accessories. I would not become a metrosexual.
After I finished my shower, I found my wife and said, “If it’s a pouf as opposed to a scrubber, why is it in a masculine color?”
“It’s a marketing gimmick,” my wife said. “One designed to make you feel good about using a pouf.”
“You say tomato, I say tomahto,” I said to my wife as I stormed out of the room.
I may be many things, but I am not a man who uses a shower pouf.
