Wife Leah and I were walking through a “bath and body” store. Now,
do you think those folks who bathed once a week not too long ago would ever
have believed there would be a store given to selling bath items?
Wife Leah and I were walking through a “bath and body” store. Now,
do you think those folks who bathed once a week not too long ago would ever
have believed there would be a store given to selling bath items? What would
they think if they discovered their “washrags” (leftover pieces of
cloth from wherever) had become all kinds of bathing cloths and devices, even
battery-powered scrubbers? Some of the washing devices cost more than my grandmother
spent on washrags during her entire lifetime.
No longer just plain bars of soap. If you buy a bar of soap in one of these
bath places, it will have all kinds of things from plastic flowers to chunks
of organic matter embedded in it. There are clear bars, milky bars, pumice bars,
oatmeal bars and so on.
You do not have to buy a bar to have bath soap. You can buy it in squirt bottles,
pump bottles, squeeze bottles, tubes and tubs. There is even one container upon
which you press the pump and the soap comes out already lathered. Pure laziness.
So, the wife and I were checking out fragrances in this bath place. You know
you live a very boring life when an exciting evening on the town consists of
sniffing fragrances at a bath shop.
We found soap and bath oils and shampoos and sprays and hair conditioners and
skin conditioners. They came in fragrances of tea, almond, coconut, coffee,
mint, orange, lime, lemon, strawberry and just about every other fragrance one
encounters in the produce section of ones local supermarket.
There were skin conditioners and softeners made from and smelling like coconuts,
avocados, oatmeal, etc., etc., etc.
“Would you like to get any of these?” I asked my beloved. Our anniversary
was close and this could have provided a slam-dunk gift along with a marvelous
evening out at Taco Bell.
“No.”
“No?” I said with surprise mixed with a little disappointment, realizing
her answer meant serious shopping for an anniversary present was in my future.
“No.”
“May I ask why?”
“Look at these fragrances,” she answered. “When I bathe, I do
not want to emerge smelling like food. Where is the romance in smelling like
a salad? Who wants to smell like they fell into a fruit parfait or into a punch
bowl filled with coconut drink?”
Gotta admit, although food is one of my favorite earnest times and pastimes,
I never dream of awakening to the aroma of a fruit bowl wafting from the wife
by my side.
Well, spending a night out on the town in a bath supply store may not be your
idea of a great date, but, chances are, you enjoy browsing your local discount
store, or sporting goods store, or scrapbook party. You get the idea. The bottom
line is, America is a land where folks spend far more on luxuries and pastimes
than we do on missions and evangelism. Unless we change, we will have more and
more luxuries and less and less “Kingdom Work.”
Well, I gotta go. Thinking about all those fragrances in the bath store has
made me realize the time – time to eat food. Forget bathing in it and wearing
it.