Please Keep All Smells Outside the Nose

One of the more fascinating things about living with children is getting a front row seat to the exact moment their brain just forgets how to brain.

Not permanently. Just a brief system outage.

My thirteen-year-old had one of those recently.

I asked if he needed anything from Walmart.

“Body wash.”

Reasonable. Responsible, even.

He told me he still had some of his Old Spice Batman body wash and that he liked it, but the smell was REALLY strong. Then, with genuine concern on his face, he explained the problem.

“Like when I wash my hair with it, I can smell it all the way in my nose.”

My brain buffered.

All the way.

In his nose.

I just looked at him. “All the way in your nose, huh?”

Sir.

I have some potentially devastating information regarding both the primary function and geographic location of your nose.

But then my brain caught up with the other part of that sentence.

Wait. When you wash your HAIR with it?

Why are you washing your hair with body wash?

“It’s a 3-in-1.”

It is not.

He was absolutely certain it was.

Meanwhile, there is actual shampoo sitting in his bathroom.

So I corrected the body wash situation. I never did explain why I was laughing about the nose.

I did, however, immediately text his father at work.

Because parenting is a partnership, and there was absolutely no reason I should have to know this by myself.

I live with these people.