Personal HygieneThere comes a point at which your hygiene becomes less your problem and more everyone else's:
My old school nurse never seemed to wash - instead she wrapped herself in crepe bandages from the first aid kits. The smell was beyond pungent. If you got ill at school, it was better to suffer than try and explain symptoms whilst only breathing out.
When she was eventually 'let go',they had to strip the wallpaper in her office to get rid of the lingering odour.
How scuzzy have you got? Or, failing that, how bad have people you know got?
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chthonic, Thu 22 Mar 2007, 12:40)
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UncleanI used to work in a Public Analysts lab in Manchester. From time to time members of the public would ring to have this or that analysed or commented on.
One such call fits this thread and god I wish it didn't. A local reporter was running a story on a lady who had lived alone for some thirty years bar the company of a succession of cats. He called with what he believed to be a health problem and would I mind speaking to her social worker? Happy to help I agreed.
The social worker came on the line and announced the lady in question to be "somewhat disorientated and imbalanced". All very interesting but not something I could assist with. Then came the issue.
She had had regular baths but had not washed her hair in some ten years. Now you don't need to wash your hair with soap; rince it and keep it clear of interfering partickes and it'll clean itself (no that's not a joke). That said if you decide to keep nuggets of kitty litter bits of flea collar, tuffs of cat hair, scraps of cat food and (deep breath) the occasional treasured part of a dear departed kitty in your hair, the result is a bit of a mess. I was asked what I'd recommend to try and clean this.
I mumbled something about using a succession of showers with steadily increasing detergent strengths; it was all my overstressed brain could come up with.
I declined the offer to assist.
Sad and very true.
(, Thu 22 Mar 2007, 20:58, Reply)
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