Soap

In case anyone was wondering, Ultra Palmolive Oxy Plus dishwashing liquid certainly does the job. However, it does not taste good.

Recently, I learned this the hard way. I packed some yummy chicken noodle soup to eat with my lunch at work. It was so good, I ate it to the last drop. When I was finished, I dumped some dishwashing liquid in there, so I could take it to the sink and wash it. You can imagine where this goes.

I must've gotten sidetracked at work, because a few minutes later, I looked at my bowl and got excited about what looked like tiny droplets of leftover soup. I dipped my spoon in and gobbled it up. All I can say is, thank God I didn't swallow. I can't even describe what lingered on my tongue as I raced to the ladies' room to rinse it out. It tasted like a combination of Pine Sol mixed with coal mixed with Sour Patch Kids candy mixed with Nyquil. It's safe to say that I won't be returning for seconds.

My own dishwashing taste test led me to a memory, this one going back to high school. I had this media arts class and we met in the library. I think the goal of the class was to produce and edit video, but most of the time, all we did was sit back and wait for an easy A. This was a small class, with a combo of football players, cheerleaders, druggies, geeks, student gov folks and losers. I was none of the above. I guess I probably fell into the loser category back then, but I didn't know it.

Anywho, there was this kid in my class named Aaron. He was in special ed classes and the teachers said he was mentally slow. Of course, he was constantly teased about that. The worse part was that he didn't seem to know he was being teased. He thought he was friends with these two football players in our class -- guys that pushed him in the hallways and constantly played tricks on him.

Once, because class was so dull, Aaron fell asleep. With his mouth open. One of the football players found a bottle of dishwashing liquid and poured some into his mouth. He woke up with this shocked look on his face because there was something terrible in his mouth and he didn't know why. Everyone laughed -- including me. I felt bad for him, but I didn't think there was anything I could do so I joined in the crowd.

Aaron told the teacher and she investigated. Come to find out, the genius pranksters poured the dishwashing liquid in his mouth all in front of a videocamera that recorded their every move. They were suspended, the local paper and TV news stations did stories about it. I think Aaron was pulled out of that class or something, but I can't remember.

Well, now I've become a form of Aaron all on my own. Except for me, no one saw me feed myself the dishwashing liquid, there was no camera in sight and no laughter, other than my own, a few days later. I guess the one thing I learned from all this is that I should watch where I toss my laughter. Because in the end, we all eat the soap.

(Photo from http://www.totalmotorcycle.com/pics/PalmoliveOriginal.jpg)