Apparently, Some People Are Using the Pandemic as an Excuse to Take Fewer Showers…and I Think That's Qu-White Interesting

See, y’all think I just be talking shit.

Y’all think that when I make jokes about the dis-melanated not using washcloths or bothering to wash their legs in the shower, I’m just pulling white stereotypes out of my ass much like the bars of soap wypipo pull straight out of their asses BECAUSE THEY DON’T USE WASHCLOTHS!

Y’all think that when an Ohio lawmaker suggested last year that Black people are disproportionately vulnerable to COVID-19 infection because our hygiene practices are lacking, and The Root’s Stephen Crockett responded saying, “I know good and goddamn well that this obese white mass of ‘fuck y’all mean y’all don’t wash your legs?’ did not, in Crispus Attucks’ America, in the year of our lord and ‘You about to lose yo job,’ fix his mouth to say that the ‘colored population’ might be hit harder by the coronavirus because they ‘don’t wash their hands as well as other groups,’” that he too was just randomly citing stereotypes out of his anger at the sheer caucasity.

But most stereotypes come from something. There are plenty of Black folk who love fried chicken and watermelon; I’m sure there are a number of Jewish people who are involved in “running Hollywood;” a lot of Asians probably do well in math, and there are white people in Rudy Giuliani’s teeth’s America who look for any excuse to bathe themselves less often.

The pandemic has become a new excuse.

From the New York Times:

Robin Harper, an administrative assistant at a preschool on Martha’s Vineyard, grew up showering every day.

“It’s what you did,” she said. But when the coronavirus pandemic forced her indoors and away from the general public, she started showering once a week.

The new practice felt environmentally virtuous, practical and freeing. And it has stuck.

“Don’t get me wrong,” said Ms. Harper, 43, who has returned to work. “I like showers. But it’s one thing off my plate. I’m a mom. I work full-time, and it’s one less thing I have to do.”

Ms. Harper, who still uses deodorant and does a daily wash of “the parts that need to be done” at the sink, said she was confident she was not offending anyone. Her 22-year-old daughter, who is fastidious about bathing and showers twice a day, has not made any comments regarding her new hygiene habit. Nor have the children at her school.

“The kids will tell you if you don’t smell good,” Ms. Harper said, “3-, 4- and 5-year-old children will tell you the truth.”

A few things:

First of all—once a week, my non-nigga?

You’re telling me that an entire 168-hour time period passes before you hop your stankin’ ass in the shower? You’re telling me that in a span of seven days, you only cleanse your body of nature’s perfume, which is stankiness, on one of those days? Non-sis’, you only shower 4 times a month? 48 times a year?

Secondly, TF do you mean you wash “the parts that need to be done” in the sink? What parts? Your armpits? Your crotch? Your asshole? Non-fam, are you washing your asshole in the sink?

Do you doo doo on a regular basis? Are you, on a daily basis, tainting the same sink you wash your hands and face in with doo doo crust and literal booty juice?

I mean, I know you wipe after taking a shit—at least, I hope so—but washing your ass in the shower for a more thorough cleaning is essential and OMG, I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M EXPLAINING THIS TO ADULTS!

And how the fuck does standing over the sink washing specific areas of your otherwise dry-ass body take less time and effort than hopping yourself in the shower and washing everything?

Third, you’re consulting small children in order to determine whether or not your ass is musty?

“Three, four and five-year-old children will tell you the truth.”

Do you know what kids that young also do? They stink.

They pee in the bed. They play in the mud. They’re like three/four years out from potty training. These are the people you trust to tell you if you smell like a thousand earring backs?

The Times notes that Harper isn’t alone in this act of blaspheming before the gods of hygiene. Apparently, a lot of people around the world—and I’m just guessing that a disproportionate number of them are of the melanin-been-washed-off persuasion—decided even before the pandemic that regular bathing is unnecessary.

In fact, apparently, it’s science.

More from the Times:

The American obsession with cleaning began around the turn of the 20th century, when people began moving into cities after the Industrial Revolution, said Dr. James Hamblin, a lecturer at Yale University and the author of “Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less.”

Kelly Mieloch, 42, said that since the pandemic began she had showered only “every couple of days.”

What is the point of daily showers, she said, when she rarely leaves the house except to run errands like taking her 6-year-old daughter to school?

“They’re not smelling me — they don’t know what’s happening,” Ms. Mieloch said. “Most of the time, I’m not even wearing a bra.”

What’s more, she said her decision to stop daily showers had helped her appearance.

“I just feel like my hair is better, my skin is better and my face is not so dry,” said Ms. Mieloch, a mortgage loan closer in Asheville, N.C.

Shit, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we melanated folk are taking our Black’s stubborn refusal to crack for granted and white people are right to apply soap to themselves less often in order to slow their own crack-age.

But—and I’m going to quote News Editor Monique Judge on this—“As for me and my house? We will continue to wash our ass every single day.”

BECAUSE NIGGA, WE DOO DOO EVERY SINGLE DAY, AND WE AIN’T WASHING THAT SHIT OUT IN THE SINK.