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When I was in high school, our next door neighbour, Miss Kirby, was divorced, childless liberated woman of thirty-nine. That was completely unheard of at the time. She was totally like Bea Authur in Maude, and she was the talk of the neighbourhood. She liked going to check the mail in her crochet sweater dress, sparkly bracelets that jingled when she walked, and high-heel espadrilles, all of which made my mother’s canasta group go crazy. Miss Kirby had been to the Middle East in the late 60s and taught belly dance on Saturday mornings at her house. The only belly dance I knew was drawing a face on my stomach and wiggling my lingering baby fat in the mirror. Once I tried to find out what was really going on in Miss Kirby’s dance, so I tried to peek in. I stacked up a bunch of books so I could see into her sunken den, from our living room window. I got grounded for a month, not to mention that I fell on my butt. From that day on Miss Kirby kept her curtains closed, but on days when the wind was right, I could smell the incense she burned. It was sandalwood.

I didn’t remember ANY of that until I got Mistral Sandalwood Bamboo Men’s Soap. The rich sandalwood smell is great. Mixed with extract of green coffee and white ginseng– totally wakes me out of my morning zombie state. The bamboo powder scrubs dead skin cells away– I’ve noticed that my wife has offered me more back rubs lately. Yeah, I know . . . 14 dollars for a bar of soap. Crazy. But it totally pays for itself, if you know what I mean. . .

I bet Miss Kirby is still teaching belly dance somewhere. I bet she’s voting for Hilary, too.