just another Sunday morning with the Wendling

Since about June, my bathroom sink has featured Dr. Bronner's soap in a stoppered Erlenmeyer flask*. Also on my bathroom sink is a bottle of jojoba oil, which I use to remove eye makeup. (Hat tip to cupcake_goth.) One of the reasons I kept the jojoba oil on the sink was that I kept finding a little ring underneath the bottle, as if the bottle was slowly leaking. Indeed, it kept disappearing faster than expected.

This morning I caught my son "washing" his hands with the jojoba oil. He'd been doing that since I put the flask on the counter.

Now, it's been so long since I started using the flask that I can't remember whether I told him that it contains soap or not, but consider this:

1. The flask is in the same place as the Dr. Bronner's bottle used to be.
2. The flask is clear glass, and a Dr. Bronner's bottle is clear plastic. It was possible to see that they contained substances of identical optical and mechanical properties.
3. He could have asked me what was in the stupid flask. He did not.
4. He could have read the label on the jojoba oil. He did not.
5. He could have noticed that the "soap" he was using didn't really feel like soap and therefore concluded that it might not be. He did not.

Do any of you guys still wonder why I worry about my son and his... still-evolving capacity to function as an independent adult?

After this discovery, there was the wailing of an exasperated parent, followed a few minutes later by hysterical laughter. My son has learned to recognize when my laughter is hysterical and when it isn't. It's a pity he isn't similarly discerning about liquid soap and oil.

M'boy claims that he used real soap at the supermarket where he works (PCC Kirkland) right before he started his shifts. I sure hope that's true.



*Long story. And hey, it looks cool.