Salvation

Thank goodness!

I’ve been saved from hygienic disaster by the kindness of a soap-selling corporation that advertises on Face Book.

Morning showers are removing my acid mantle made up of sweat and sebum—sebum is a word guaranteed to elicit illicit giggles from all adolescents—and this mantle-layer-blanket-shroud protects my skin from unsavory bacteria-dryness-irritation-congestion. It’s sort of a Stridex face pad, Vicks Vapo Rub, and Vaseline lotion rolled into one.

Along with this warning, I received some stellar advice against enduring water pressure for any great length of time—five minutes tops—and to use cold water rather than hot. On a side-note for young men, the colder the water the less you will have to brag about regarding your imaginary John Holmes-type equipment. Besides being great for an acid mantle, it’s excellent for inducing humility.

To confuse life further we all need a sort of Biblical wisdom when choosing soap so as not to disrupt our short, cold shower with a rash and destroy the mantle. This advertisement pointed me to exactly the right brand of soap products, which happened to be manufactured by the same corporation that posted my warning. It seems that their righteous desire for my physical health and welfare can be linked to the amount of money I’m willing to give them. I understand that because it’s the same holy truth taught by members of the spiritual elite regarding the health of my soul—see Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland, Pat Robertson, etc.

If life is this awful with damaged skin and hot water showers this dangerous—something I didn’t realize until I read this—I guess that makes me even more lucky than I previously thought after getting out of Vietnam alive. Back in those days of youthful immortality, I braved an extremely dangerous rush of hot water and a scrub from cheap cleanser one morning after a playful vacation called Operation Lancaster. My buddies and I had been camping out in an area of luscious jungle after traipsing through a wonderland of open earth blistered for our pleasure by miracle liquids named after a rainbow—Agents orange, white, purple, blue, pink, and green—and designed to eliminate anything growing that might make our foot travel more difficult. The military in general, more particularly my organization called the United States Marine Corps, was always considering ways to increase the joy of our little nature hikes.

Around day twenty, my acid mantle, which was sunbaked, bug-bitten, dirt-caked, thorn-scratched, and covered with cigarette burns from frying the blood-sucking leeches stuck to it, began to cry out for a shower. Little did I know of the horror waiting for my skin. The booby trap that blew up our point man, the sniper’s bullet that dropped our lieutenant, the mortar fire, the ambush, the mine field, not to mention that Russell’s viper that almost bit me in a tunnel, were all minor irritations compared to the deranged drenching waiting inside my base camp at the Rockpile on my return. Had I been aware that a shower without the proper dermatological damage control could destroy my dermis, I would have been more cautious about jumping into one. But without thinking, I stripped naked and rushed into a cascade of hot water scrubbing every inch of the jungle rotted sweat and sebum protecting my poor acid mantle from desecration. Beneath the steam and the suds my skin glowed crimson after the vigorous rubbing of a sponge. As with many things that I have done over my lifetime that felt good but were an exercise of bad judgment, I have kept on doing this on a regular basis.

I thank Al Gore, praise be to him, for the internet connection that enabled this public service announcement about a damp threat for me. My capitalist corporate overlords and their words have helped me re-evaluate my healthful priorities and most of these new priorities run conveniently parallel to the products they are willing to sell me for very reasonable prices. So, if you are like me in this 21^st century, quit worrying about such things as cancer, car wrecks, or being shot by a mad man while ordering a Wendy’s Combo meal. Don’t fret about the guy near your child’s school with a bag of meth and a for sale sign. Forget clean drinking water and a Covid vaccination or the possibility of being nuked by a foreign power. Climate change is a hoax. These are minor irritations compared to the horrors of not buying enough corporate products to protect you from everything that you currently don’t worry about because those every things are the same things you’ve been doing on most days of your life and you won’t make it much further. You are now a broken, debauched, soulless, cripple with a disappearing acid mantle. Seek help as I did.