Basic Hygiene 101

My mother had an interesting philosophy of hygiene
bathing, washing your hair
was a sign of vanity.
But, Saturday night,

while fighting the wild-ungodly-beasts that were her daughters
to get them to the bathtub

So, she sanded us down
with her home-made lye soap
that even dissolved tar from Dad's work clothes
and melted gum from our hair
and sent us to bed in old fashioned hair-pin rollers
to sleep all night on our stomaches
with pillows under our chins
so the sharp pins wouldn't cut the scalp
and we sat in church
with stiff necks
quietly cringing and defenseless
against the Carduchi brothers
who pulled our hair and snapped the rubber bands of our pigtails
from their family pew behind us.

But--after church
Godless heathens we would once again become
knowing, another bath was a week away
and we wore old hand-me downs or Salvation Army clothes
that Mom didn't care about finding holes in

And even when we started school and wore the
``everything-about-private-school-is-just-too-expensive''
polyester, plaid, Catholic uniform jumpsuits
she didn't worry much.
these garments were indestructible to mere mortal children and so multi-colored,
stains would be swallowed by the mind-dizzying patterns.

But, sometime around fourth grade,
other people started to notice
the once-a-week-Schierhoff-bathing ritual
more importantly,
they started noticing the smell of the other six days. . .
And tried to drop a few hints now and again.

Once, when Father Tony was filling in,
he gave a quick sermon within a sermon on the subject of bathing.
He was relating how Jesus had washed the feet
of even the lowest of sinners
And somehow became side-tracked
and focused a ten minute tangent of the importance of regular bathing
to avoid many easily preventable afflictions
directly at me.
I thought he was talking about leprosy
(since that was the only affliction priests ever talked about)
so I began desperately washing my feet in the sink every night
before I said my prayers and went to bed.

And once,
after a spending a weekend
roughing it in my father's mountain cabin
and the whole family spending a very hot desert Sunday night
sleeping in the 69 Volkswagen bug while my father
tried to fix the transmission
and after having fixed the car
and Dad dropping us off directly at school
with no week-end bath at all
with nothing but Mom's spit in the handkerchief face-cleansing
and a similar quick hair brushing

that's when my fourth grade teacher began a month long series of

lessons on the subject of basic hygiene, under the guise of
`health,' which, I found out much later, was actually a class
we were required to take, but was not a part of the Clark County
course curriculum until sixth grade.

like

where we would chew those red-plaque-staining tablets and the food pyramid,
where we would all bring in `healthy' dishes
and have a big party.

on the importance of scrubbing with a wash-cloth while bathing,

Why heat makes us sweat.

I remember most of these classes very well
though I can't say they had much impact on our family habits.
But once I was in sixth grade,
and required to shower every day after P.E.
The whole hygiene issue just sorted itself out.
And by high school, I had even discovered
that greatest modern inventions--
Shampoo--
and by senior prom,
I even had my very own curling iron.

Karen Lumos
Copyright 2000