Because Someone Has To

I love a hot bubble bath.

It doesn’t have to be Cucumber Mandarin Monkey Lips from Bath and Bodyworks. The bubbles can be from a squirt of dish detergent and an egg beater. I don’t care. My love for the hot bubble bath is not about the bubbles.

Forget about the bubbles. The bubbles are periphery.

It’s not even the bath. It’s not the bathroom or the tub or the towels or even, so help me, the hot water.

It is the combination of those things. The holy braid of hot water, bubbles, and a clean tub. It requires nothing of me but my presence. It’s not hard work, taking a bath; and I can do it like nobody’s business.

But mention “bath” to some people and they look at you as if you’ve suggested that they sit in a tepid tub of chicken broth.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the shower. It has its place. When you’ve got dirty feet, dirt on your knees from gardening, when you’ve been sweating all day, when you’ve been at a particularly smoky bonfire, when you actually stink, then a shower is your best friend.

When I stink, I shower. Trust me. I enjoy a good stink now and then – I mean, who doesn’t? But my lifestyle just doesn’t put me in the direct line of sight of a good funky stink very often.

But this isn’t about the shower, dagnab it! Forget the shower!

The bath. It’s about the bath. No one worries in a bathtub. No one gets bad news in a tub. Turn off the phone! Bring a book! Sit in the hot water, legs stretched out in front of you, a cat balanced on the edge of the tub, suspiciously eyeing your toes through the bubbles…

You don’t have a cat? Might I recommend Midge’s Home for Wayward Kittehs?

Scratch that. The cat is not the point.

The cat is periphery.

It’s the bubble bath. I just felt the need to defend it.