Hygiene Is a Luxury I Can't Afford

Dear Diary,

There's a story about my hike on October 10, specifically at Bitter Lake Playfield, that I haven't told yet, because it needed a page of its own.  This is that page.

Probably, first I should explain about the title.  See, I have a more or less perpetually runny nose.  Years ago I noticed that in order to live up to proper hygiene - each time I blow my nose, throw away the paper and wash my hands - I would have to own a paper towel company and spend all my time next to a sink.  Hence I developed a slogan, which is now this page's title.

So failures of hygiene aren't new to me, but this one hit a new low.

Surely you remember, dear Diary, from the recent page "Top of the City, Part III", that the restrooms at Bitter Lake Playfield, the only park restrooms for a considerable distance in any direction, were locked when I arrived there shortly before sunset.  This disappointed me partly because I needed to wash my hands and my fork so I could finally eat the salad I'd bought that morning.  After some rather unhappy time reviewing my options, I decided to use the park's water fountain to accomplish these things.

It had been raining, so the pavement near the water fountain was wet.  I was carrying at least one satchel, probably two, in addition to the stuff in my cart.  To put the satchels down so I could wash up, I could use the wet pavement, or the relatively dry area on top of my cart.  As I'll explain in much more detail in another page coming soon, I'm essentially hydrophobic in winter - scared of water, that is, not rabid - so I chose the top of the cart.  The only problem was, my soap, detergent and fork were all in the cart.

So first I had to hold the satchels in one hand while pulling the soap bottle out with the other.  Then put the satchels down, and then wash my hands.  Unfortunately, my current hand soap is really clingy; it takes gallons, ponds of water to remove enough of it that I can use my hands normally again.  And of course without the restroom's dryer, I had to dry my hands by waving them in the cold air.  It probably wasn't actually twenty minutes later when I finally put the soap away, but it sure felt like it.

The logistics so far had gone so well that I tried a variation:  leaving the satchels in place while removing the detergent.  This went OK, given that the detergent was in a corner of the cart.  But the fork was in the middle, and when I tried to remove it, of course the result was exactly what I didn't want, my satchel smacking into the puddles.

My detergent is less clingy, and my impression at the time that the fork washing also took twenty minutes, was almost certainly false.  Though this time the fork as well as my hands needed drying.

When the whole nerve-racking experience - call it, maybe, half an hour - was over with, of course I couldn't find a dry bench, and had to eat standing up.  With my recently immersed satchels back on the cart.

And by then I'd realised that one month later - i.e., now, a week ago - this would have been impossible, water fountain dry and restroom still locked.

It's a slogan I need now more than ever:  Hygiene is a luxury I can't afford.

Good night, dear Diary.  This page is the first I've succeeded in writing in the Blogspot (Blogger) app; we'll see whether the app can publish it too.  Good luck!