I like to use a soap with a pleasant fragrance to it. However my wife and her mother insist on a cake of soap with an odour resembling some kind of harsh industrialised detergent.

I don’t know where they find this soap, but it certainly wouldn’t sell in a Coles or a Woolworths.

Every time I get near it I get an idea of what life would have been like in those concentration camps in China during the cultural revolution. This is really harsh soap that leaves one feeling that their body has been stripped of all vital moisture. It is certainly not a luxury item.

In any case, its always there in the shower, whether I like it or not.

In order to get around this, I recently purchased a bottle of body shampoo, as something that I could use and at least feel like I had a real showever.

The day after I purchased it, the bottle went missing.

When I asked my wife what happened to it, she quickly ran to the bathroom. She returned with an old handwash bottle.

She then proudly stated that her mother diluted the contents of my bottle, and got to fill four old handwash bottles.

When I told her that it was for me to use in the shower, she looked at me strangely and said, “why would you use that in the shower? We already have soap!”