To find this bizarre? Friend and soap

[SplodgePocket]

A friend came around earlier as I had a half day. Before she left, she said she was just popping to the loo. I then heard her call a minute later, “Splodge? There’s no soap”.

I have a dispenser, so I assumed it had run out and called back that there was some on the side of the bath. There was a pause and she called back, “No, not here”. I knew it was there so replied, “Just against the wall, behind the shower screen”. Again, a pause before a bewildered “No…”

I was completely confused now, as I knew very well it was there. I went through to the hall and she was standing in the doorway looking baffled. I went in, looked behind the screen and sure enough, there it was. I handed it to her and said, “Here, see?”

She burst out laughing and said, “Ohhhhh!! It’s shower gel!!” I was a bit confused and replied, “Well yes; soap, shower gel… whatever”. She was smiling at me a bit like I was a child who’d made a comical mistake. She said, “You said soap. This is shower gel. Show-er gel.” With the last bit really slowly, like she wasn’t sure English was my first language.

I was really taken aback. Who is this bizarrely literal? Surely it’s all pretty much the same thing? I thought maybe she was looking for a bar of soap and this was what had confused her somehow, but surely when you couldn’t see it you’d think “it must be the stuff in the bottle”? And even if you didn’t, wouldn’t you just have used the shower gel anyway?

I’ve never noticed her take things so literally before. Is it me or is this just really odd?!

there was some

Why all the repeated coy euphemisms? Why not just say shower gel?

I don't possess shower gel. Vile stuff.

You didn’t, though. You said there was soap on the edge of the bath. But it was shower gel. It doesn’t matter if to you it’s the same thing inside the bottle; it would be weird for her to grab the shower gel when you were telling her to look for soap, just as it would be weird for her to grab your loofah or shampoo or razor just because they were in the place you’d told her to look for something else. If you meant use shower gel, specify that!

I thought you were being 90% unreasonable but now I've read your responses, I think you are more like 95% unreasonable.

Shower gel is not soap. In my mind, they are two very different substances - one solid, one a gel. One literally is for use in a shower. Of course, you can wash your hands with shower gel and, if that's all there is, that's not a problem.

But if I ask you "is there some soap in your bathroom?" and you say yes, then I am going to look for soap, not shower gel. Even if I find the shower gel, I'm not going to use it because you told me there was some soap.

My 10% of the doubt is because, in different contexts, "soap" can mean different things. Older people like my mum might talk about "the dish soap" to mean washing up liquid. There is "soap powder" (washing powder). Maybe you come from some weirdy place and time where "soap" can mean "shower gel".

This thread should tell you that most people don't come from that place.

What about on the basis that they were both oranges?

Jeez. Only on MN have I seen someone superior about shower gel. ‘Vile stuff’ apparently 😆 yet also according to this thread the exact same ingredients as bar soap? I don’t think I’ve seen a bar of soap for a couple of years personally.

You say tomato I say tomato, you say soap, I say shower gel, potato, potato, tomato, tomato, let’s call the whole thing off….

Well that's a bit of a sweeping taxonomic statement, innit.

The classification of "soap" is not universally understood or agreed. Is shower gel a sub-category of soap or a distinct category in its own right?

In my internal lexicon, "the soap" would most commonly be used to mean "the bar of soap". I would differentiate "liquid soap" from "soap" by giving the former a prefix. I would not consider usually shower gel to be a sub-category of soap, especially in the context of this thread, although I appreciate that chemically and technically they may be nearly identical.

Just asserting "Shower gel IS soap" isn't helpful. I would counter with "shower gel ISN'T soap".

You keep repeating that you told your friend exactly where to find the Hand-Washing Product but you're not acknowledging that she couldn't find it because she was looking for soap! Or possibly liquid soap. She saw shower gel but (like many here) did not interpret that as a Hand-Washing Product. It may be exactly the same formula. It may be what you normally use to fill your soap dispenser. But it's not what your friend uses.

Jesus Christ on a fucking bike!!! 😆

“Bum bacteria” 😆😆😆 Genius.

She has a point, you specifically told the person that there was soap so they were looking for soap…. Can you not see this

What do you think I do - shove the whole bottle there?!

I mean, don’t get me wrong; it’s not as tight as it was 20 years ago. But I can still manage to squeeze the shower gel into my hands rather than going full on “bottle up the fanny”.

Surely an adult can think “Oh well, nothing specifically labelled soap - the shower gel will do”?! 😆😆

She could have gone mad and used it once though, right?

😆😆😆

Thank you for finding that funny, but I was wrong to say that about your situation.

I have been corrected about you not having soap at the sink, so I am sorry for that.

Not read the whole thread.

This thread minds me of the rush to buy hand wash before we went into lockdown. I remember going into my local Tesco and there wasn't a hand wash or bar of soap to be found.... But the shelves were full of shower gel and body wash 🤣🤪

“Coy euphemisms”?! 😆😆😆

Oh - you mean you were serious?! I assumed “bum bacteria” was a joke!

But there was literally nothing else there!! She wasn’t expected to guess at shower gel from 43 different bottles!!

I'm deadly serious about bum bacteria. I hate using the toilets at work as I know people don't wash their hands. It's the door handle on the way out that is probably loaded with the stuff. Grim!

But you specifically told her there was soap😂😂
Why didn’t you say reach into the shower and grab the shower gel🤷‍♂️

I think it's a bit odd that she called you to get soap. I'd have just shrugged and washed my hands without soap.

But I can understand why she was bewildered when you said there was "soap" by the shower screen when there wasn't, just shower gel. It wouldn't occur to me that you meant that.

Even if someone told you to go and look for it there?!