August 12th, 10:33 | Ode on bath salts

Do you ever find yourself shopping for a girl you don't know very well, and wondering what exactly the hell you should get her? Do you ever, perhaps, wander aimlessly into one of those Body Shop/Bath and Bodyworks-esque kind of joints and find yourself musing over handcream or body lotion or shampoo or those little basket things thinking, "Well, I mean, every girl needs soap, right? I think she likes lemon-y stuff... right?". Well. Look no further, folks. What you need to get the girl-acquaintance is simple, and it's available in any girly-bath-accessory-type store. The miracle gift? Bath Salts.

Don't be thrown. It's not just one of the more obscure cousins in the Frou-Frou Bath Product Family. Oh, no. Bath salts are quite possibly the only arguably useful product, and better still, they rarely actually smell like anything (despite claiming to), so even if she hates the pineapple/verbena salts you've chosen specially for her, she can still use 'em because, well, once they dissolve, they don't smell like anything. (And besides, there'll likely be so much bubble bath and other crap in the tub, it'll overpower the salts.)

Why am I convinced that this is the ultimate in Girl Acquaintance Gifts? Let's face it: any girl who has access to a bathtub and engages in some form of physical activity will at some point in her life need a muscle-relaxing soak. And sure, it can be done with just the water, and maybe some girly-smelling oils and stuff, but for the kind of bath that really gets in there and prevents your muscles from freezing up into a knot half an hour after you get out of the tub, bath salts are required.

You might be wondering at this point what authority I have on the subject. It's a valid question. Or it would be, if it weren't for the fact that I am the reigning queen of all things bath-goo related. Up until a couple months ago (when I had a bath something like every 3 days, and threw in as much Goo as I could stand, just to use the stuff up), I had one whole cupboard dedicated to bath-related paraphernalia. Sometime during the purge, I actually managed to use up my stockpile of bath salts. Did I notice? No, not really; after all, we've already established that you can't smell it, and it's not like it makes mounds of puffy bubbles.

Then yesterday happened. Yesterday saw an ultimate frisbee game where I arrived at the field...
1 - With no water
2 - With no cleats
...to a game where we knew we'd be extremely short on players. Luckily for me, I'm a guy size 7, and I was able to borrow another guy's cleats (he played in running shoes), and was simply left gasping every time I was off, due to no water. (If you're wondering where my cleats were, I usually just leave them in the back of the Tank, but I forgot that I'd cleared it out to help chan move. Ack.) We lost the game 16-14, and I pulled (what felt like) every muscle in my right leg. I have never worked so hard making sharp cuts, never run so hard in my life. (Seriously, not even when trying to catch the bus. The wind had nothing on me trying to keep up with the girl I was blocking as she tried to sprint into her endzone.)

Needless to say, last night called for some serious aquatic therapy. So I poured a bath, threw some goo in, thought briefly that it'd be nice to have the salts, but whatever, and hopped in. Half an hour after emerging from the bath? Lo, my entire lower body had frozen into one chunk. I was not a happy camper, let me tell you.

So the moral of the story? Bath salts, people.

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