Showering for 3

The funny habits we pick up in life

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Two people have shaped how I shower more than anyone else in this world: my friend and my sister-in-law.

Years ago, when this friend and I lived together, she made an offhand remark. I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t use a shower loofah.

She’s Korean, and the same friend who introduced me to the concept of a Korean sauna. All I remember from that first description was that there were grandmothers in panties.

What do you mean, the grandmas in the panties?

You know, like lingerie.

No, I really don’t know. What do you mean by that?

The question loop went on like this for a while — both of us wondering what the other could be missing. She said that at the Korean sauna, there were lingerie-clad grandmothers standing at tables, brushes at the ready to scrub you down to your raw skin.

We’d gotten on this topic because of her loofah remark. So the point, to her, was not the lingerie, but rather the skin scrubbing. An important part of any respectable personal hygiene ritual.

And one that I did not practice.

I felt mortified, bought a loofah, and displayed it in our shower (we used different showers, but I still made sure mine was visible should she ever enter my bathroom).

I remember using it only a few times, because it hurt my sensitive skin.

(Years later, I had my first Korean sauna experience, and I would experience the true pain of being scrubbed raw by a lingerie-clad grandmother.)

Ever since my friend told me about her mistrust, I carry some guilt with me into my loofah-less showers and pray for the water to wash it away. Turns out, only a loofah will do the trick. Alas.

Every once in a while, once a year or so, I try again. I buy another loofah, scrub halfheartedly once or twice, and call it.

The guilt is sticky but nothing unbearable.

A few years later, my sister-in-law makes another offhand remark — these are always the ones that get you — in a similar matter-of-fact nature.

She said something like, Well, obviously you’re supposed to shampoo before washing your body — otherwise the dirt from your hair just gets your clean body all dirty again.

Obviously.

It struck me for the second time now that my personal hygiene might not be all I thought it was.

Ever since then, I am religious about tending to the top of my body first and methodically working my way down.

Like a reverse burglar.

This was a welcome addition to my shower routine, because it’s something I can keep up with and that has come to bring me joy. There’s an orderliness to my showering now that was lacking before. And I get to feel proud knowing my sister-in-law approves of my cleanliness.

Enjoying the OG shower (note my commitment to starting with the hair!)

A long while later, it came to light that both my friend and my sister-in-law did not live these truisms as I thought they did.

In fact, neither one could remember or even believe what they’d said to me.

Yes! You said you did not trust anyone who doesn’t use a shower loofah! I’m sure you said it.

That’s so crazy. I can’t believe I said that.

And just a few months later:

Yes! You told me about that method! I always work from top to bottom now!

I can’t believe I said that. I mean I guess that would make sense? But what do I care? What a crazy thing to say to someone.

Here I had shaped a not insubstantial portion of my life (my showers are long and frequent) according to what I believed they believed.

Not only did I believe they truly believed these things (Can I really be faulted for that? They did tell me these things! I swear it!), but I thought this was their gospel.

In my world, my friend and sister-in-law are sitting at home thinking, I can’t STAND those non-loofah,-bottom-to-top, dirty hygiene scoundrels.

So off I went, spending a good deal of effort on making sure that wasn’t me, and a good deal of guilt for being exactly that.

And they forgot they ever even said it.

And this, to me, is life.