Sunday, December 16, 2012

No, I Am Not Down Wit' OPP

Naughty by Nature did a song about it back in the '90's. Are you down with OPP? Well, I'm certainly not. Wait, we're talking about the same thing here, aren't we? Other People's Pubes? Sure we are!

So, I'm in the shower the other day, humming a little tune and in a generally good mood, when I glance over at the ledge which is supposed to hold innocuous shower stuffs, and I stop cold in mid-songbird. There it was, just staring at me... a pubic hair!

Uber-annoying Janice on Friends couldn't have said it any better. Oh. My. Gawd!

Oh. My. Gawd.
You'd think I'd never seen one before. It might as well have been a spider, the way I reacted. I went all Anita Hill recounting a Clarence Thomas Coke can incident, in full scream (inside my head) accusation mode, "Who put the pubic hair on my shower ledge?"

If you don't have to deal with OPP, then you are one lucky mama, but I am forced to deal with it often. First of all, I have to clean the toilets in this joint. Trust me, the hairs of nether-region origin hang out there.

Let me be the first to point out that there are substances on toilets that many mere humans will not even touch, especially if they belong to someone else or in this case, fell off of or out of someone else. I must touch these things because it is my domestic duty. That means nobody else in the house will do it, so I am forced to scrub the toilets.

Worse yet, I clean for a relative and I have to deal with OPP there also. Housekeepers of the world, may I just say that the respect I have for you is great. Other people's pubes are one thing when it's your own house and your own tribe, but when you have to cleanse a foreign toilet of its ookies, well, that takes a special person. I am that special person.

So the pubic hair in my shower was not that surprising since the shower is location number two on the Family Feud board when asked, "Places you might find a pubic hair," but I just couldn't figure out how it got up there! It should be at hip level and go down, not rise up to greet me on the shelf at shoulder level somehow, not a foot from my face, agreed? I do expect agreement here.

If it's in the bottom of the shower, you can take care of it much easier. You can poke it with a toe and guide water its way to coax it down the drain. But up there? Well, that takes ingenuity to get it down the drain without touching it with your hand. You have to fashion a water irrigation system out of your body parts that will reach the hair with the right angle and force to dislodge it and send it drainward.

I accomplished the task with some difficulty and body contortion, for the angle was high, my friends, being up on the shelf and all.

I pondered how it came to be there in the first place while I finished my shower. In case you were wondering, singing was now out of the question.

It could have hitched a ride on a bar of soap, undetected... you know, stealth mode. That happens. I get that. However, there was no bar of soap in the vicinity.

It could have been from our teen daughter who insisted on using our shower because hers was clogged with what else, HAIR! It would not drain, leaving her and her sister standing ankle deep in water. Instead of cleaning out the drain, she did the lazy teenager thing and jumped ship... er, shower and invaded ours. Eww! Not my daughter's pube, puh-lease!

Trust me, I fixed their shower after this particular OPP incident, just in case. There was a substance in there I can barely speak of, much of which was hair. Hair and other gag-me substance. Oh, and also a part of a razor and naturally, a hair tie.

Back to my shower... the pube could have been placed there by Clarence Thomas or Anita Hill. This would be a heck of a conspiracy theory and is the least likely scenario.

And of course, don't forget the irrational fear version. It could have crawled there on its own accord and positioned itself there just to startle me. You know, a different kind of OPP - otherworldly paranormal pubes.

Isn't it funny how we can tolerate OPP in sexual situations with our spouse, but in the wrong setting, one tiny hair freaks us the crap out? Truth is, my husband has curly black hair at the base of his neck that could pose as a pubic hair if it got long enough. I'm hoping that's what was really in the shower. I'd be much less traumatized if it was a rogue neck hair.

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

14 comments:

  1. Cindy! LOL! I once found an OPP on the shower ceiling leaving me to also wonder....was it from an alien, cause how in the world did it get up there!!

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  2. Cindy! Good thing I had set my coffee cup down prior to reading your post, otherwise, I'd be wiping French Vanilla coffee from my screen. Can I just say, EWWW! I know, I am designated domestic goddess around here as well, and I get grossed out plenty of times. I just go to my happy place.

    Find your happy place and play there while you are cleaning and voila@! Cleaning finished before you know it.

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  3. It is the highest compliment when people spew coffee at my work! LOL! Glad you can relate to my OPP dilemma.

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  4. Indeed! That's definitely a "things that make you go hmmm" moment!

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  5. Thirty-five years ago when my wife and I married we divided our home-life responsibilities into two very distinct categories, at her insistence. Her areas would be style and decór. Mine would be infrastructure and bodily effluence. My wife is easily grossed out. She does not clean bathrooms. I’m not even sure that she uses them. However, this arrangement has worked well for 35 years and the more-or-less successful rearing of two boys – although I took charge of cleaning up whatever came off or out of them. But I took to the task as Hercules to his 12 labors. In fact, if I correctly recall my Greek mythology, cleaning up OPP was Labor 4 – just between slaying the Hydra and hosing out the Augean Stables.

    Thanks for the laugh! You can bet that I’ll keep reading.

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  6. Dave, thanks so much for stopping by! I like your comment (Hydra - funny!) and checked out your site. It seems you are a fellow humor writer. Now I know two people who have written for Chicago Parent magazine. I'm not all that much of a fer piece south of Chicago. Perhaps I should jump on the bandwagon with you and Christopher Bull Garllington, an equally funny fella and submit. Four hours south is considered a suburb, right?

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  7. OK, that is totally gross! Thanks for the laugh though!

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  8. Jodi, that comment sounds funny when you put it like that. I'm glad to entertain WHILE grossing people out at least, huh? LOL!

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  9. A four-hour drive? Takes that long to commute downtown from the city’s west side...unless traffic’s bad, of course.

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  10. Funny Cindy, but I have to point out that hubs' arm hairs look exactly the same and can sometimes be found all over the kitchen because he likes to cook. Talk about an understanding wife.

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  11. Oh boy, that would make it exciting when you find a hair in your food!

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  12. Well that will ruin a good shower for sure!

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