“What is this?”
“It’s soap.”
“I know it is soap. It’s orange. We have never had orange soap.”
“So now we do.”
“Why do we suddenly have orange soap? It doesn’t smell like an orange. As a matter of fact, it smells sort of icky.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I have time.”
“Ok. In my news feed, it says that old people have an odor. An ‘old people’ odor.”
“Oh, no. What odor is that?”
“They describe it as sort of like mushrooms and must. And apparently, when you are old, you have it.”
“Are you saying I smell like mushrooms?”
“No. But you might to other people, and so might I.”
“Has anyone told you that one of us smells?”
“Of course not. Nobody would ever say that to an old person. So savvy old people have to be proactive and start using this soap that frankly, smells awful.”
“So when we use it, we take on the odor of this orange soap that isn’t a nice citrus smell, but sort of smells heavy and frankly repellent?”
“I think it is supposed to maybe react with your body chemistry to offset the old person odor and neutralize it.”
“Or make you smell, not like an old person, but just a person that smells, instead of mushrooms, more like rotted fruit? What IS this product?”
“You sort of hit the nail on the head. It is persimmon soap. Specially formulated for those of us approaching death.”
“But nobody has even hinted that you or I smell like mushrooms?”
“Who would tell us that? Frankly, the only person I can think of who would be that honest is 8 years old and lives in California.”
“So now, because of an article on your so called news feed we are doomed to use this persimmon stuff so we smell like persimmons instead of mushrooms? I like mushrooms. I like them sautéed and on top of chicken marsala. Have you ever had persimmons?”
“Yes. Once. I wasn’t a fan.”
“But you are fine with smelling like one until you die?”
“It was in my news feed.”
“The persimmon people put it there.”
“Let’s just try it and see how people react.”
“Molly. They won’t react. Just like they aren’t reacting to the fact that we might smell like mushrooms.”
“Ha ha! But we won’t smell like mushrooms, so people won’t go home and whisper about us smelling like old people–like when they are getting ready for bed and reviewing the dinner experience.”
“One question: have you ever smelled an old person? Like, caught a whiff of mushrooms?”
“Actually, no.”
“So this is all an insurance policy against being told by an adorable 8 year old in California that we smell sort of like the inside of a closet?”
“Exactly. I rest my case.”
“Should we start giving this soap to our friends as hostess gifts–since you also read on your news feed that we need to start bringing hostess gifts?”
“Only if our hostess is over the age of 65.”
“So if we have a young hostess, what do we bring?”
“A soap DISH.”
