Every year, as part of her stocking stuffer crusade (despite our lack of stockings) my mother gets me scented bath doohickeys–lavender, green tea, white ginger, body scrubs or washes or lotions or whatever. And this is fine, because I would not buy myself such arcane potions–I am a utilitarian showerer, I believe that you get in, soap, shampoo, rinse, and get out, and more than five minutes is decadence–and it’s kinda fun now and again.*

This year she got me some maple sugar body wash, which I thought was odd at the time, but now I found myself standing under hot water with a bottle of it in hand. Maple sugar. Huh. “Interesting,” I said, to the shower, which did not have anything to say in reply.

But there I was, and there it was, and I absorbed a lot of Star Trek in my youth, including the boldly going where no man, etc, so what the hell. I popped the cap, found my loofah, and lathered up.

Powerful stuff, that maple.

Now I smell like a waffle. A big…’ol…clean…waffle.

*Furthermore, there is a moratorium on buying what James (himself a long-haired peacenik) calls “goddamn hippie soap,” because he claims it smells too much like food and if it’s early and he’s groggy and I am cruel enough to stock that one gingerbread-scented kind, disaster will inevitably follow. So I am forced to get it as gifts.