While I HAVE inherited The Mother's nosiness, I am NOT quite as curious as she is. Case in point: While washing bedding the other day, I bent over to pick up the fabric softener bottle when I felt something drip on my head. Now, I was aware that it could have been water from an overhead pipe, or detergent dripping from the spigot on the container, OR something I would rather not know about. I felt the top of my head, looked at my fingers, kind of smelled them, and then moved on without determining exactly what dripped. And I was okay with that. (I figure it was detergent.) The Mother, however, would have gone to a mirror to see what was in her hair, rubbed the drip, smelled her fingers repeatedly, and, finally, tasted to see if she could determine what the substance was. (There was no smell because I use unscented laundry detergent because of my sensitive skin.) Believe me, that is EXACTLY how she would have acted--she has done this before: once with battery acid!
Now we will do a little "aside" here. As I mentioned, I have sensitive skin. This has lead me to MANY places on the internet in search of soaps, lotions, and other products I can use comfortably. My latest obsession is the company Lush. Lush is a cosmetic company which hand makes their products using fresh organic fruits and vegetables, essential oils and safe synthetics, and don't do any animal testing. The company was started in England and became a big hit in Europe before moving on to North America. While there are some stores here in the US, it is easiest to buy online. (I can't wait to go to Chicago--hopefully this spring--as there are TWO stores there!) The SMELL of some of the products is to die for--they have a soap called Sexy Peel which smells just like a lemon drop candy! Unbelievable! The other thing about some of their products is they put PLANT materials in some of them. In the Sexy Peel soap you will find bits of lemon peel. Other products--like the bar shampoo I like so much--will have dry flowers embedded in them. You can find seeds, ground nut shells, and what looks like pieces of twigs in some of the products--a lot of which is for exfoliation purposes. I know, it all sounds very weird, but you would understand if you actually SAW the stuff and was able to use it. Now, back to the curiosity thing.
I think The Mother's curiosity has skipped a generation and has found my oldest. Here is THAT story. C has rosacea and has a lot of trouble finding products she can use that won't irritate her face. I decided to buy a bar soap from Lush that should be calming enough for her skin. When I got the soap, I cut a chunk off and placed it in a Ziploc bag in anticipation of the next time someone went up north. While I thought the soap would get to her before Christmas, it--along with some other non-Christmas gifts--were still here when K was ready to deliver Christmas greetings to her family. Along with the gifts, I packed a grocery bag full of the extra stuff that was going to her, along with the soap in the Ziploc bag. The soap is pink in color--about the same as calamine lotion--and has some 'chunks' in it, which are visible. Here is a picture of the soap. (The bar I got doesn't have the 'hair' on top--it just is pink.) I didn't think anything of the fact that I didn't warn C about what I was sending--I figured she would remember when I had told her about everything the first time. Later that day, she called me. She wanted to know what that 'pink, fudgy, nougatty stuff in the Ziploc bag' was that I had sent for her. And immediately I knew: she had tasted it! And I was correct! She said it was the worst tasting candy she had ever eaten and why did I want her to try it? Once I told her what it REALLY was, she explained what she had done: she looked at it, she felt it, she smelled it, and then she tasted it. Just as The Mother would have done!
Curiosity Isn't Always A Good Thing
