An Old Dog's Tale: The soap aisle is all a big mystery to the men of the tribe

Now I walk through the door at Jack’s, and talk to one of the girls that work there. Soap, says I. Soap, says she. What kind of soap you want? Well now, I never thought of that. You got your dishwashing soap, she says. Your hand soap, your body lotion, your clothes washing soap ... What kind of soap you want? Show me soap, says I. And I’ll figure it out.

The cashier lady points straight down the aisle in front other. Down there, she says. Lots’a soap.

I thought I knew Jack’s pretty well — I can find pickles and spuds and quarter-inch carriage bolts; I know where the pop is and the deli; I can find an 8-penny nail in a 10-penny bin.

But this was an aisle I never knew! The soap department: was this here before? Everything smells on this aisle: you got your ammonia smell, your doctor’s office smell. You got your hemorrhoid soakers, your false teeth glue; you got your fungus grease, your ear scrubbers, your nose basters. And soap ... You got soap ...

I see a couple of guys there, stocking the shelves — they’re employees at Jack’s that I know. “Hey guys,” I said happily. “My wife wants soap ... What do ya got?”

One was kneeling down, putting out pink boxes with pictures of puppies on them. “Well, that all depends,” he said. “How do you know she doesn’t want dishwashing soap?” “Hmmm,” I mumbled. “You got me.” “What exactly did she say?” “Pick some up for me while you’re there,” I said.

The standing up guy, he seemed to know something. “‘Pick some up for me ... You’re looking for bath soap.’ Otherwise she would have said ‘Pick some up for us.’” Now that made sense.

Right then, there’s two more guys — both Jack’s guys — and they’re interested, too.

“I go for the cheapest one I can find,” said the balding guy. “You give them cheap, they get used to it.”

The fourth guy was tall, tall as me. “I get the one with the shape like a Coke bottle,” he said. “My wife makes me. Your hand stinks just holding it.”

The first guy holds up a bottle of soap. “Ivory,” it says on the label. “Ivory Soap.” “Good value,” he says — “Just plain old soap, no nonsense, no payin’ for what you can’t use. You want soap? This is soap — S-O-A-P — soap.”

Guy number two turns to guy number five (number five? Where’d he come from?) “Blood cleans up real good with Ivory,” he says. “You gotta take that into consideration.”

Guy number two reaches up to the shelf at eye level. “Look at this one,” he said, grabbing it down and passing it around. “It’s green, green like baby poop. Got flowers and a waterfall and a basket full of somethin’ — I like baskets … well, basketball, mostly — but it’s still kind of the same.”

He passed it around to each of us. We took turns at giving it a whiff. We made big exaggerated movements. We knew this was important.

“Look at this,” says one guy, turning the bottle over. “Vitamin E — says so right there. This one’s got Vitamin E.” “What’s that mean? What’s Vitamin E?”

An older guy steps forward (guy number six?). “It’s the fifth-best vitamin there is,” he says. All the other guys look on like he was a teacher. “And there’s tons of vitamins out there. So Vitamin E ain’t too bad for a little town like Ocean Park.”

The old guy puts an arm around me, like he’s sharing secret information. “You heard of Vitamin A, Vitamin B, Vitamin C, Vitamin D?”

We all nodded our heads. I’m pretty sure most of us didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Well, this one’s Vitamin E,” he says. “Vitamin E — it gets in there and fills up all the wrinkles. It’s a dewrinklifier. Get dewrinklified.” He looks a little unsure. “That... that’s a “technical term,” he says.

One of the Jack’s guys nudged the other. “Tell you what I think,” he whispered. “I think maybe vitamins are named after the guy that discovered them. Maybe Vitamin E was discovered by Alfred Einstein.” He shook his head up and down. Now he was the one getting all the attention. “Alfred Einstein,” he said again. “He’s a scientist.”

That settled it. I was gonna buy Alfred Einstein soap with frogs on the label, and that was that.

Me and the guys, we took up the whole aisle. Impatient women were waiting to get around us. I held the soap up so they could see; I was hoping it would work like a cross on a vampire.

I thanked all the guys; they smiled at me as if we were posing for a class picture.

When I got home, I carried the groceries into the kitchen. Very proudly, with my wife standing beside me (and wondering why I was beaming), I pulled out that very special bottle of soap.

“Oh honey, that’s fine,” she said, patting me on the shoulder. “But you forgot the soup.”