Showing posts with label washcloth.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label washcloth.. Show all posts

"The Washcloth incident" try not to judge people (true story, starring Yours Truly)

A brief preface:

Not long after your favorite Dominatrix was born...my mother was in a horse-back riding incident. Her back was broken/vertebrae had to be fused. She was able to walk in time, but needless to say lifting, handling and even playing with (on the ground etc) a baby was...challenging. So, Yours Truly had a Nanny. (No, not some ninny college kid but a true blue Nanny from Sussex!) She said she spoke in poor Cockney, but you couldn't tell me the sun didn't rise for Nana...she smelled of menthol cigarettes and tea. She was quite rough around the edges but she taught me an awful lot. A real member of the family...(this matters, you'll see the connect shortly)

So, Nana was responsible for all of the heavy lifting of raising me from newborn essentially to about 6. Bathing, feeding, playing, handling...you get the picture.

Fast forward: I am 18 years old, I moved out right after I turned 18...I am in my own apartment and attending Jr. College (don't get excited, this isn't a Domme tale...one year to that...) but my dear friend (since age 11 or so-ish) comes over,  she is Mormon, not that it's here nor there. Her family raised her conservatively of course, but I was raised in the strict German ways. Needless to say, we could always relate. I digress, my friend comes over to stay the night with me. We are having a grand time in my new apartment, got a pizza was going to watch some nonsense on the television - a girls night! 
A great time is had, then it's time for bed. She wants to shower before bed so I direct her to my towel cupboard - nice new clean white towels (you can bleach towels!!) She comes out and asks me where the washcloths are? I am confused, "Washcloths?" I explain to her I didn't bother to get any as I don't use them (and I really didn't outside of to wash my face and take off makeup.)

The next day her mother was coming to pick us up to take us to their church (long standing tradition) and sometime during all that she explained to her mom that I didn't grasp the point of a washcloth. Her mom comes over (I found some 7up to offer her) and explains to me the full proper usage of a washcloth, in a motherly, non-demeaning way. (True story!) As it turns out: Nana thought my mom talked to me and taught me "how to wash" and my mom thought Nana "taught me how to wash"

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't smelly or gross, I'd take a bath daily, soak and use my hands to suds EVERYWHERE (you know what I mean!) but now I know the mystery of these damnfangled little squares...

Fast forward nearly 20 years and I'm talking to a buddy on the phone...turns out his parter didn't use washcloths either --

I think the reason I am sharing this is: even with the best of grooming and intentions -- things fall through the cracks (pun intended). Things get overlooked or simply not taught. You never know why someone does things so differently from you. Culture? Religion? Never taught? All possibilities...

So, when someone does something different from you, pause for a moment--have some empathy and remember DJ.