Bottle of Body Wash

When I was a kid, I remember one of my dad’s pet peeves.  Boy, do I remember it.  The tube of toothpaste.  Always had to squeeze from the end up to the opening.  Always.  That was the rule.  In fact, we even had some plastic doohickey thingie that helped roll up the tube of toothpaste from the end up to the opening.

Lord help us if we forgot to squeeze from the end up to the opening.

Me and my brother, two years younger, both of us in single digits of age, well, let me just say we’d remember my father’s rule for about five minutes after he would sit us down and lecture us on it.  Five minutes, and then it would be forgotten.  Completely.  Until he’d lecture us again the next day, or a few days later when he got around to it.  Again and again, sometimes in frustration, sometimes keeping his annoyance in check.

It was his pet peeve.  We didn’t purposefully squeeze from wherever we grabbed the tube.  It just happened.  We were kids.  Not even ten.  And as pre-tweens, we had no real memory retention for those things adults held in importance.

Flash forward forty years.

I am in the shower, rushing to get out of the house to get to work.  I grab the bottle of body wash – and it’s empty.

Oh, there might be a smidgen left at the bottom.  But since it was sitting right-side up (with the cap open, mind you), it will take five minutes for whatever body wash coagulated on the bottom syruply make its way to the bottle opening.  Maybe four minutes if I slam it against the tiles upside down a hundred times.

This is my fatherly pet peeve.

When you use something up in the shower, let an adult know.  And when you are done using the body wash (or shampoo, or conditioner), close the cap securely and put it back upside down.

Is that so much to ask?

I have myself lectured my two girls on this on more than one occasion.  More than two, even.  Possibly a half-dozen or more times.  And they retain it while I am lecturing them, and then, five minutes later I am sure, they completely forget Dad’s Rule of the Body Wash Bottle.

Just like I forget my Dad’s Rule of the Tube of Toothpaste.

And thus goeth the cycle of life …