As you know one of my jobs on the Sydney Morning Herald is a fortnightly column I write in the Saturday magazine Good Weekend called Modern Guru. Readers write in with 'etiquette' dilemmas that need solving and I reply. I found the following letter so bizarre I thought you might all like to share it and my answer to it. It will be in the paper next month. Remember, these are real letters.
Q. After our Saturday morning "lie in" is the only time my husband and I use the bathroom together. While I shower, he towel dries and then proceeds to blow dry his private areas. If that's not bad enough he then hoists his foot up next to the vanity and dries between the toes one by one. He says it keeps the tinea in check, I say it's gross. What do you think ?
A. What do I think? What do I think? You've just told me, and a sizeable readership of this newspaper, that after a weekly interlude with your husband, he grabs a hair dryer and blow dries his genitals. Do you understand what you have written? You do know people will be reading this, don't you? I have an image in my head I know will keep me awake for many nights. It is of a hair dryer in the hands of a strange man and it is not being pointed at his head. What do you think I think? Of course it's gross. Anyone would think it was gross. A dog would think it was gross. Not to mention weird. Gross and weird. Why would you need any confirmation? I haven't even started giving any in-depth thought to the tinea situation lower down other than to confirm that, once I get my head around it, I suspect that I will also classify this action of podiatary misconduct as COMPLETELY GROSS. Imagine if he went through this performance before your `lie in'. The sparks would fly, that's for sure. And aren't you curious to know what he gets up to with your hair styling appliances on the days you don't share the bathroom? I think you should pack your bags and leave now and don't forget the hair dryer. Leaving it behind constitutes a flagrant abuse of power.
3 comments:
Here's what the Cleveland clinic in America says Tinea is also known as;
"Athletes foot, Jock Itch and Ringworm"
Here's what the Cleveland Clinic in America says
you should do to prevent the spread of Tinea
"Prevent person with Tinea from using other people's hair care items.
Prevent person with Tinea from using other people's personal items, such as clothing, towels and bed linens.
Limit the person with Tinea's physical contact with people not carrying the infection until treated effectively with an anti-fungal cream."
Yep, on that basis, I think his special bathroom treatment fully qualifies as disgusting. Think of all those ringworm spores flying around the bathroom.
I think I can taste my own vomit actually.
Oh .. doesn't everybody do that?
Kate, I think there is a definitional problem here.
Gross is the wrong word. The man is cleaning himself. Sure, he does so in an unorthadox manner, but it is cleaning nonetheless, so it lacks the yukky scuzz factor necessary for grossness. Our fastidious friend of the dessicated testicles is certainly obsessive, strange and just plain shameless but he isn't gross. If he went all Mapplethorpe with the hairdryer, THAT would be gross. This bloke is in need of some counselling (oh, and his own hairdryer).
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