The following is an interaction I had with my coworker after I told her about the name of my blog.

The Great Unwashed– “So basically it’s named that because I’m always dirty.”

Coworker who had been amused by the blog talk up until this point, looks at me serious and wide eyed. “But you do bathe right?”

The Great Unwashed debates answering honestly and waits just a second too long to reply.

Coworker stares me down “You must bathe.”

This seemed like less of a question and more of a reminder.

Add some blonde hair and you have me in July. (Photo Credit : http://www.acsf.cornell.edu)

The Great Unwashed Voice “Well ish. Sometimes. Actually not really; in the summer I morph into a curly haired clod of dirt. ”

The Great Unwashed Voice At Work thinks -I’m receiving a panicked look, I should probably give an answer that adheres to social mores to calm my coworker. Hence I emphatically say “Of course” and watch as my coworker visibly relaxes.

I can safely commit to showering once every seventy-five years. (Photo Credit : space.com)

While it’s a given with my family that I will only shower for special events like the Pope visiting or the appearances of Halley’s Comet, I forget that the rest of the world isn’t as accustomed to this. Last winter while staying in a swanky pants hotel my sister, upon seeing me emerge from the bathroom in a towel asked “What’s the occasion?”

In my social circle I’ve been known to put off hopping into the tub until the last possible second, because there comes a time, around the six or seventh day after your last shower, when it’s easier to live in your own grease because the amount of effort one has to expend to clean oneself feels almost too much. At home my mother seems to sense when this critical dirt mass moment is approaching and tries to veer me off my Unwashed path.

The reminders begin early in the morning “You need to shower today.” Then later on they continue when my mother urges me to “Think about showering at some point.” These types of prompts will increase in frequency until my mother all but throws me and my curls-cum-greaselocks* under a faucet of some sort. Surprisingly it would seem that this sort of behaviour is not welcome in the workplace.

*This was the first time I used that particular three letter preposition. As always, I googled to ensure I was using it correctly. Having typed in the word into the Google search bar, I was all set to click “enter” when I thought, “Wait Unwashed, that’s not going to bring you the result you are hoping for”. Hence I was forced to sit and determine what type of word “cum” was. For everyone out there who isn’t interested in dirty pictures on the internet, it’s a preposition.