The Soap That Wouldn't Leave

We have in our bathroom a bar of soap we picked up about six months ago from a Holiday Inn in Michigan. Yes, my wife and I are among that sad class of obsessive individuals who feel compelled to pocket mini soap bars and tiny bottles of shampoo from the hotels we visit. We would never pilfer towels, or anything else we're not supposed to take. But we figure the hotels want us to take these disposables. It's a form of advertising for them. (And, now that I've mentioned the Holiday Inn, my conscience can rest easy in the knowledge they got their money's worth.)

This bar of soap, however, is different from any we've found before. It won't disappear! While most hotel soap doesn't last as long as your stay, and some times not even a long as your shower, quickly degrading into an oozing pile of mush, this bar is still hard. True, it's smaller than it was when we first peeled off the wrapper, it's turned transparent in spots, and it no longer has the nice cinnamon scent it did when it was new. But it's still here.

Yes, I could just throw it away. But, as you may have surmised, I'm a tightwad. A cheapskate. A miser. A penny-pincher. Parsimonious. Although I prefer to think of myself as frugal. But at least I'm good at it. When my wife is ready to toss a tube of toothpaste, I'll insist we can still get another week out of it, perhaps two. And, often, we do!

So simply dropping this bar in the trash is not an option. Indeed, it's become something of a competition: who will dissolve first, the bar, or me?