The mystery of the missing soap
You all know that I am an avid reader of mysteries, but sometimes we have our own real life mysteries here as well. Take the case of the missing soap.
One of our bathrooms upstairs is the children's bathrooms, whose sink is lower than other sinks upstairs. Now, since it is the children's bathroom, it is not always pristine and things cannot always be found when they are needed. Are we the only house where things just randomly vanish, never to be seen again? This happens fairly frequently. Often the items are too big to have been taken by Borrowers, but every human in the house disavows any knowledge of the missing item. As far as they are concerned, they never even knew said item existed, so how could they have taken it? Often Mr. Nobody gets the blame and we move one, the item sometimes resurfacing at a later date and sometimes not.
Early last week, when the little girls went upstairs to get ready for bed and found an entire bar of soap missing, it was classed as one of these incidents. (Though why -- why!? -- would a person take an entire bar of soap was beyond me.) We got out a new bar of soap and went along with our washing up.
(As a side note, I'm used to soap being used up fairly quickly in that bathroom. Not because my children are particularly fastidious about cleanliness, but because they seem to be budding scientists and experiment with how fast they can make the soap dissolve.)
The next night, the soap was still there.
The day after, the soap was missing again. It was a new bar. It was gone. Not just a gooey mess in the bottom of the soap dish, but vanished. There was much parental stomping about and interrogation. Have you seen the soap? Do you know what happened to the soap? Are you sure you didn't accidentally take the soap into your room? Why am I walking around the house asking people if they have taken a bar of soap? Since no one came forward to 'fess up to being a closet soap kleptomaniac, we opened up another new bar of soap and went on with the washing up.
The next night we all breathed a sigh of relief when the soap was where it was supposed to be.
But the night after, I hear J. shout from the bathrroom, "It's gone again!" Who was stealing the soap? Why were they stealing the soap? What could a child want with three bars of soap? Why do we live in an insane asylum? Then, looking around, J. saw a bar of soap on the floor. (This was not the fate of the others, we looked.) J. picks up the bar of soap, which was not quite as pristine as it had been, because it had...
wait for it...
a tooth mark in it.
Not a little child, human tooth mark, but a long canine-type tooth mark. The kind of tooth mark that would go with, say, a large Labrador tooth. Yes, indeed-y, Gretel was our soap-stealer, er, eater. This would explain the dog's unusual intestinal difficulties of the past week. Why we didn't think of Gretel as the culprit immediately is beyond me, but really, would you? She does love soap, though. She likes to lick the bathtub where soap has been sitting, so I guess it's not surprising she would turn to actual soap consumption. (Bleh.)
So now, to keep the dog away from the soap, we have to keep the soap up on a shelf, conveniently placed so that anyone under the age of 8 cannot reach it. They are supposed to call for someone to help them get it when they need it. Yes, that's working out just as you would expect it to.
I'm working on a dog-proof, child-accessible soap plan.
One of our bathrooms upstairs is the children's bathrooms, whose sink is lower than other sinks upstairs. Now, since it is the children's bathroom, it is not always pristine and things cannot always be found when they are needed. Are we the only house where things just randomly vanish, never to be seen again? This happens fairly frequently. Often the items are too big to have been taken by Borrowers, but every human in the house disavows any knowledge of the missing item. As far as they are concerned, they never even knew said item existed, so how could they have taken it? Often Mr. Nobody gets the blame and we move one, the item sometimes resurfacing at a later date and sometimes not.
Early last week, when the little girls went upstairs to get ready for bed and found an entire bar of soap missing, it was classed as one of these incidents. (Though why -- why!? -- would a person take an entire bar of soap was beyond me.) We got out a new bar of soap and went along with our washing up.
(As a side note, I'm used to soap being used up fairly quickly in that bathroom. Not because my children are particularly fastidious about cleanliness, but because they seem to be budding scientists and experiment with how fast they can make the soap dissolve.)
The next night, the soap was still there.
The day after, the soap was missing again. It was a new bar. It was gone. Not just a gooey mess in the bottom of the soap dish, but vanished. There was much parental stomping about and interrogation. Have you seen the soap? Do you know what happened to the soap? Are you sure you didn't accidentally take the soap into your room? Why am I walking around the house asking people if they have taken a bar of soap? Since no one came forward to 'fess up to being a closet soap kleptomaniac, we opened up another new bar of soap and went on with the washing up.
The next night we all breathed a sigh of relief when the soap was where it was supposed to be.
But the night after, I hear J. shout from the bathrroom, "It's gone again!" Who was stealing the soap? Why were they stealing the soap? What could a child want with three bars of soap? Why do we live in an insane asylum? Then, looking around, J. saw a bar of soap on the floor. (This was not the fate of the others, we looked.) J. picks up the bar of soap, which was not quite as pristine as it had been, because it had...
wait for it...
a tooth mark in it.
Not a little child, human tooth mark, but a long canine-type tooth mark. The kind of tooth mark that would go with, say, a large Labrador tooth. Yes, indeed-y, Gretel was our soap-stealer, er, eater. This would explain the dog's unusual intestinal difficulties of the past week. Why we didn't think of Gretel as the culprit immediately is beyond me, but really, would you? She does love soap, though. She likes to lick the bathtub where soap has been sitting, so I guess it's not surprising she would turn to actual soap consumption. (Bleh.)
So now, to keep the dog away from the soap, we have to keep the soap up on a shelf, conveniently placed so that anyone under the age of 8 cannot reach it. They are supposed to call for someone to help them get it when they need it. Yes, that's working out just as you would expect it to.
I'm working on a dog-proof, child-accessible soap plan.
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Blessings,
Sandwich