Saturday, September 28, 2013

Shower Complex

I compare myself unfavorably to others in a lot of categories, but bathroom products has never been one of them—until yesterday.

I've been renting out my spare bedroom to short term guests on Airbnb. The most recent visitor settled in and promptly filled a shelf of the shower rack with her stuff. I took one look at it and instantly lost about half my self-esteem.

Everything she put on the rack was so pretty! She has a shower pouf that looks like a lovely blue-tipped white rose. She has shower gel that comes in an elegant gold bottle with shimmer on top. She has about 4 shampoos and conditioners that aren't anything special, but they look so nice sitting there in the rack all together.

By contrast, my shower supplies look depressing. On one shelf, I've got a bottle of Suave shampoo (the cheapest brand at Target) and a used Voss water bottle that holds a solution of baking soda and water. Next to them both sits a disk of soap acquired at some 2-star motel. On the shelf below that, because it's too big to fit next to all the other stuff, is a family-size bottle of all-purpose conditioner by Kirkland, Costco's signature brand. I have to keep it upside-down so that the conditioner will come out when I need it, and it's been sitting there so long that brownish film has formed on the bottom. To top it all off, I have a scruffy old white washcloth draped over the bar. The overall effect is one of stark apathy.

I never thought that your shower shelf could say a lot about who you are, but if it does, mine says I'm a bachelor who's given up on life. Hello, newfound sense of inferiority!

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