Tuesday, I went on a jungle rescue mission to give light to some pitiful carrots and beets, and recover some seedy green beans (or maybe they were always supposed to be the hulled kind, I don't know), and laid waste to as many weed seedheads as I could. After a shower using mainly Asquith & Somerset Lavender ("moisturizing") soap, I applied a handy ammonium alum deodorant crystal to my pits. But then I remembered my success with putting Humphreys under potassium (shaving) alum, so I used those, too. Did I use the moisturizer? Oh, God, I can't remember!
I didn't do jack on Wednesday, but it was stressful enough, as I turned 47. WELL beyond the midpoint of my life, there's no denying it now. The family picked up that brush that was like Gramps' for me; rather pricey, and not pristine by any means, but a new/old experience, and possibly a viable replacement knot for the nub, so that someday my son can use his great-grandfather's brush.
Anyway, I had to post to tell you: armpit sterilization IS REAL. At bedtime on Tuesday I woke my wife and made her sniff my pit to confirm. "It smells like nothing, right? Usually there's something." Like perfume, at least. Humphreys itself smells quite strongly at first, a soapy smell. Confirmed: nothing. Still good in the morning, too, so I rode with it under a somewhat musty T-shirt. Bedtime? Again, nothing. Maybe a faint hint of some Mrs. Dash from yesterday's beans and rice... way beyond the threshold of what one could call an odor. Just the meat that I'm made of.
Did I wash my pits again, and forget? No: I'm totally paranoid about cross-contamination, and only Wednesday night did I fetch the body cloth from the second bathroom, where I took that shower, so I could soak my feet. THINK, man, THINK! What was the finishing layer?!?!?
Recently, I know, I tried a shot of cheap perfume in the pits, which may have left the biofilm vulnerable to extinction. If I had done that again on the given day, I would have gone with dilute Brut, hoping to get birthday sex. Nah, I would have detected that easily. And I know I had some odor going into that shower. It was alive, and I was already sweating when I got out, motivating the bactericide.
Wait. There was something different about each pit. Maybe that's why I can't remember! Was it an experiment: left arm no moisturizer, right arm moisturizer? Why do you never write things down in advance, you fool! Maybe that's the "Mrs. Dash," just a rubbery petro residue of some sort, not the onion powder that dominates the spice blend. Oh, I know -- the alum itself is sulfuric. My right hand is dominant, so one would expect any bacterial odor to make its resurgence there.
As I lay awake, my eyes opened with a vision: a pea-sized gob of the Dollar Tree "Lubricating" moisturizer. Photographic memory, how I love thee! Shared between two pits, I believe the right got shorted a bit.
Well, now it's morning, and just the faintest hint of sweat seems to tinge the front corner of each pit, like I'm picking it up from the environment as I lay on my arm. So I guess I can wash again. Good news for my other body parts.
"Sterilization" was certainly too strong a word. When the skin was rewetted prior to washing, a lightly malodorous (anaerobically fermented?) ooze took the opportunity to depart. Probably for the best, since propionic acid is supposed to be good for you.
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