
Did you ever hear of soap malfunctioning?
Maybe that conjures up images of soap refusing to lather into bubbles… Or being so slippy that it keeps sliding out of your hands & onto the bathroom floor, resistant to any attempt to pick it up again.
To be precise, it was the soap dispenser that malfunctioned.
I know, I know. You’re right. Why do we need a soap dispenser, when a bar is the natural way for soap to dispense itself?
Well, mostly we do just use bars of soap the traditional way, in our ongoing attempt to use less plastic. But we’d got the in-laws staying recently, for their first visit since the Pandemic. And I’d found an old plastic pump bottle of liquid soap in the cupboard, and thought as all four of us would be using the same bathroom for the weekend, it might be a good time to use it.
So I put it out on the sink.
It worked just fine for the weekend, and about a week beyond that. Then it started sulking. Requiring several pumps before any actual liquid soap spluttered out onto my hands.
Then it retired as a useful means of getting the soap out, and just sits on the sink shaming me for the needless plastic. Mocking any thought that it might have saved me a few seconds with that pump action.
So we’ve returned to the bars of soap we’ve been happily using for the last few years. You know, the kind of soap that doesn’t malfunction.
Meantime, the plastic bottle glares at us. Daring us to use up the liquid soap inside it, and challenging us to repurpose the container.
Any ideas? Like most of us, we’re not perfect, and do have plastic things in the house. But, like most of us, we’re trying to reduce them, and not buy more.
The laundry basket is proof of this. Handles that broke years ago were first replaced with some old luggage ties. Hooray!
Then further cracks appeared deeper down. Boo!
They have been threaded through with an old leather belt that holds the basket together, and becomes a new handle. Hooray!
I love the ingenuity of my beloved, one of my favourite things about him. Never throws things away.
He looks at an old bed base, and sees kitchen shelves.
A broken suitcase, and sees a courgette planter.
Sees his old belt as a laundry basket handle.
I’m curious now, what will he see the plastic soap bottle becoming?
Give him time… he’ll think of something.
Meantime I’ll apologise to the trusty bar of soap. Sorry for doubting you, and thank you for never malfunctioning. Simple is often best.
Simple soap, I’m sure we’ve got one of those in the cupboard.