There?s a game we spontaneously play every few weeks at our house. It?s sort of like Chicken, the daredevil stunt where two cars race directly at each other until one yields. But we play with antibacterials.
The game is called Let the Bathroom Soap Dispenser Get Completely Empty and Wait to See Who Caves First and Fills It Back Up.
I?ve tried to file a trademark for this game, but the FTC won?t accept applicants with more than 15 words in the title.
Here?s how it works: both wife Hanna and I watch as the level of soap drops all the way to the bottom of the bottle, until the soap can no longer be extracted easily.
This is when we initiate stealth tactics: Frantically pumping the dispenser until it sneezes out just enough to use.
It?s a little bit like a prospector trying to draw oil up by hand. But it looks a lot more like the Mad Hatter churning butter.
Once every molecule of soap has been extracted from the dispenser, we then begin scavenging, working our way through every other soap dispenser in the house until we end up at the kitchen sink with the bottle of Dawn Ultra with Active Suds. (And THEY get a trademark….)
At some point, one of us will give in. The other will walk into the bathroom one day and find that the air in the dispenser has been miraculously changed to liquid soap.
I don?t know how most people handle their home soap inventory. Judging from the amount of cheap filled pump dispensers stores stock, I imagine some folks just keep replacing them once one is empty.
We buy our soap in bulk, though, and refill. Usually the clear, slightly blue-tinted, soap that comes in a clear 5-gallon drum with tropical fish printed on the back.
I?ve never figured out why they do that. As far as I know, the producers of ?Finding Nemo? and the Scrubbing Bubbles executives never went into business together.
But just because we refill doesn?t mean we have fancy soap dispensers.
We used to. A nice ceramic blue one with a silver-colored spout. But then it got knocked on the floor and cracked. I?m not pointing fingers here, but the culprit definitely had four legs and a tail.
So now we just keep reusing a cheap plastic pump from Bath and Body Works that one of us probably got as a stocking stuffer for Christmas five years ago from a grandparent.
It originally contained fancy citrus-scented, orange-colored soap. The label says Bellini Peach.
I?ve suggested to Hanna that we get some food coloring to mix with our soap so that we can at least keep up the appearances of having nicer soap.
But then we?d have to rework our game. Would the same person who ends up refilling also be responsible for recoloring? Or does it just add another element to the waiting game?
Talk about having good, clean fun….
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