Paper soap

Why am I writing about paper soap? I don’t know. But the other day while preparing for a camping trip, my friends found a box of these in one of our apartment drawers.

While we discussed whether we needed it on the trip, my friend remarked — “ We can keep one for an emergency. Most places have hand-wash, etc". And while I played with a pack of paper-soap between my fingers, it’s familiar smell pulled me back to a rusty place in my memory. His remarks got me thinking.

I have had a different relationship with paper soap. For 7 years I carried one in my pocket everyday. Well almost everyday. And not to be used just during emergencies. Basically, my boarding school had communal bogs that shockingly, now that I think of it, had no hand-wash. So every student carried a pack of paper soap with the usual set of key and other paraphernalia in their pockets. And I remember how it used to be a considerable topic of discussion. Each pack had paper stripes of a certain color. Some kids collected stripes of different colors, well because diversification is always good whether in stocks or paper soap. If you ran out of paper soap and needed one anyway, you would think about who would give you one stripe. Sometimes finding that someone could be a considerable struggle. We did not have infinite paper soap. Some people lied about it. They would say — ” Oh! Even I don’t even have any!“. Some would keep count. If you took two, you would need to give them back two or even four once you restocked. Some would honestly tell you that they could not give you any because they were short on supplies. Some generously gave. We would always remember to restock on the next town walk or home visit.

And we talked about brands of paper soap. That which created more lather and that which made less. You always used two stripes if it made less. Otherwise you were a miser. Seniors always used two, no matter the brand, because they were so high and mighty. And you could never say no when a senior asked for paper-soap. If you were a popular senior, you could always find a junior to give you one.

Anyway. Bottom line —its a weird world!