In an awesome turn events, I have been offered my first real opportunity to whore myself out in the name of free stuff!!!
It’s a red letter day, people.
Some nameless soap folks want me to review their soap on this blog. They have promised to give me free soap to review, plus some extra soap crap to offer you in my first ever GIVEAWAY!! There should be a way for the word “giveaway” to appear in shiny silver Las Vegas letters, because that’s how excited the soap people are about our new partnership.
I don’t think the soap people have read my blog. If they had, they would know that the only possible review I could do is of the soap’s utility in washing people’s mouths out.
Here’s the commercial I imagine I could make:
Narrator: “Bad mommy language? Foul-mouthed wife? Clean out her mouth with this lovely bar of organic handcrafted soap!”
Me (spitting into sink and smiling at camera): “Mmmmm . . . cleansing bubbles and oatmeal for exfoliation! I’m feeling more G-rated already!”
Anyway . . . I declined.
Interestingly, Mark turns out to be a man of somewhat flexible ethics where free shit is involved. He was all supportive and standing right behind me when I posted this about how I was never doing giveaways and product reviews. But as soon as free soap entered the picture, he got all morally pudding-like.
His position seems to be that my stand against reviews and free-shit giveaways was all well and good when there was nothing to be lost in taking such a stand. But now that free soap is being offered?
Here are his exact words:
“Come on! Who doesn’t want free soap?”
Which makes me think it’s a good thing that women don’t generally go around offering free blow jobs for review.
I can hear Mark now . . .
“Come on! Who doesn’t want a free blow job?”
Speaking of whores and facial cleansing (I know! I am about to connect whores and facial cleansing! How cool am I?) . . . . I remember one time . . .
I was about 10, and my brother and I pooled our money to buy my mom a large container of Noxzema facial cleansing cream. It came in a blue squatty plastic container and smelled of mint and eucalyptus, and my mom loved it. She rarely bought it because we didn’t have money for stuff like that. The everyday soap I remember from my childhood was called Lava, and it was some harsh shit.
The idea behind Lava seemed to be that you were so fucking dirty that sandpaper was going to be required to clean you up. They called it the “power of pumice,” but it was like scrubbing with sandy bubbles. It made bath-time a hideous and painful experience.
OK, this is hilarious! I just googled Lava soap, and their website says the soap is intended for the heavy-duty cleaning required by coal miners and oil-rig workers. Way to go, soap-buying parents of my youth!
Anyway, it’s my mom’s birthday, and we give her the Noxzema. She was all happy for about 10 seconds, which was how long it took my dad to notice the gift. And what followed was one of the more memorable psychotic breaks from reality that my father took during my childhood.
You’ve all seen psychotic breaks, so I won’t bore you with a long-drawn out description. Perhaps a selection of images and remembered phrases will suffice to capture the birthday memory . . .
“Fucking whore! What do you want this shit for?”
Spit flying from mouth.
Rips the jar from my mom’s fingers.
Unscrews the top as rage causes hyperventilation.
Gasping for breath.
“Is this what they like? Fucking whore? Want to clean up and make yourself pretty for the men you have lined up?”
Eyes flashing.
Scoops out huge handful of Noxzema.
Smears thick white layer all over his face.
“Fucking cock-sucking whore!”
Licks his fingers.
Smacks his lips.
Reads the label.
“It’s lard!!”
Races around the room shoving jar into each of our faces.
“See what your mother is doing? Dressing up in pig lard like the pig whore that she is!?!?”
Back at me and in my face.
White Noxzema melting from my dad’s features and onto my lap.
“Don’t you grow up and turn into a whore, you hear me?”
And then my mom thanked us for the birthday gifts and sent us out to play.
There was more screaming and the noises that come with battle in a marriage where one of the partners has snapped off his own little corner of the universe and declared himself god.
Ahhhh . . . the background music of my childhood.
By unspoken agreement, we kids would all play quietly together outside until the storm had passed. We spent a lot of time digging holes in our yard we imagined would eventually break through to the other side of the earth. To China. Or some other quiet and peaceful place.
Good times.
OK . . . Back here in Lake Oswego, I am looking over this post and noting that what started out with soap went to blow jobs, whores, psychotic breaks, and pig lard. And childhood escape holes to China.
I should forward this post to the soap folks and let them know they dodged a fucking bullet.
Well this post had me full of all kind of emotions. First I was like “Yay a soap giveaway” then “Okay maybe not” then “Yeah, Team Mark, push your wife to do the soap giveaway” then I got why you do not do giveaways, and then reading about your parents, wow! All I will say is I had an ex loser boyfriend just like that (except my incident was w/ perfume) so I get it.
It was like a giveaway in that it had that whole roller-coaster of emotions . . . SOAP!!! Not soap. SOAP!!! Not soap. Hurty sand soap. Insane father. Creamy soap in jar. Whores.
Just like Disneyland! In hell. With soap.
Wow, even on my best (or worst) day I don’t think I could string all of these disconnected items and incidents together. I bow to your superior maze-like mind.
There are some genetic gifts that come with my DNA. Superior maze-like mind is one of them. Also, low-level mental instability.
K, The more I get to know you, the happier I am that my kids might just have a chance at turning out normal… As normal as I know you to be! As a parent, I can only hope! I love you, and now that I am phone-less, I miss you even more! J-who?
Dear anonymous J woman,
Love you too.
You should have higher standards for your children with respect to their future “normalcy.”
Whoever you and your children might be.
I laughed so hard I almost pee’d myself. Kris, you put “facial” and “whore” in the same sentence. Just awesome.
I’m with Mark. Who wouldn’t want a free BJ? Well, I guess it depends on a few things- who, how and where are sort of important.
But you said “no” to free swag? Heck, I whored myself out for a t-shirt once. In my defense it was a launch party for some video game and… yeah… it was a geeky thing to do. But it was a disco-theme party!
<3 mustache-boobs to you all!
YOU ARE MY AUDIENCE!
People peeing themselves laughing is my dream every time I hit “post.”
Today is a great day.
Love you and your mustache boobs!
lol. who doesnt wanna be a soap whore… bc im a giveaway whore :) lol after typing giveaway whore i realize that doesnt sound close to being ok
“Giveaway Whore” should sooooo have been the title of this post!
Damn, woman.
Just damn.
Some people should not be allowed near people, much less kids.
I am amazed you surived that kind of craziness and made it to being a great mom.
I remember some friend I had said use Noxemia for a sunburn. Good idea says I.
Umm, not so much. Burning and stinging. Ever since, it’s aloe time. Take care.
Yes, that’s my other memory of Noxzema . . . having my mom spread its delightful smelling but painfully stinging stuff on my very very pale self after sunburns. Ow ow ow ow!!!
I’m sure if you wrote a soap review, it would be just as entertaining as reading your blog. AND you could quote Maj and Kallan, too.
Now the part about your dad’s psychotic breaks reminds me a lot of my uncle, whom we lived with in Bolivia. Mostly he ranted and raved at my grandmother when he was drunk, which was often.
I have lots of dad stories from which I have achieved so much distance (through time and his death) that I find them to be hilarious. But they freak some people out, so in between . . . stories of pools and ice cream. (See today’s post Dreams . . . Deflated.)
How are the moving plans going?
This was life with my late husband. I used to delude myself into thinking I had shielded my kids from most of his craziness.
I was very, very wrong.
Whenever I feel bad for them that they miss their dad, I try to remember occurrences like this and I am relieved he is dead. Some legacy.
Yes. Yes. Exactly, yes. As a kid/teenager my friends hated coming to my house. They would ask me ‘How can you stand it?’ But to me, it was just normal. The smothering oppressiveness was normal. Only as I got older, experienced more of the world, did I realize that my dad was strange. No words have ever described him as perfect as these, ‘One member who has snapped off his own little corner of the universe and declared himself God.’
Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yes.
How glorious it is to grow up. To be free. I am so grateful to have a husband who is my equal, who I am never afraid of. Partner. Not God of the Universe.
I am all full of clarity and appreciation. Thank you.
Really?
I did not realize we had this much in common, Haven.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Interesting and lovely.
Is that what that smell is? I could never identify it as anything in particular; it was just noxzema smell.
Yes . . . Mint and eucalyptus.
But I know what you mean.
Some scents just are what they are, and not their components.
I get that.
You should have excepted the soap, wrote this post as the review and watched in an entertaining way as the soap company frantically emailed you wondering what kind of psycho they entrusted their soap with.
I have never done a review of any sort, but oh my god . . .
That would have been so much fun!
Hee hee!
It would have been the Anti Review!
They would not have been pleased.
Snicker.