Did you ever look for directions on a bottle or a label only to find part of the label missing? You try to substitute letters to fill in the space and go on with your original intentions.  Most of the time you can get away with this but reading directions completely cannot be under estimated.
 
A good example would be an incident that happened many years ago. My first husband was very independent; everything had to be his idea. If I made a suggestion and he considered it worth trying, he would wait and make it look like he thought of it first Sometimes the best way for me to get him to do something or try something was to just leave it in plain sight and say nothing.
 
Like so many people his skin got very dry in the wintertime. I had suggested he use a little “Skin So Soft” in his bath water. Of course being a man, he couldn’t do that. I casually mentioned that Skin So soft would make his skin feel better. I left the bottle sitting on the sink in the bathroom.
 
One evening a friend wanted me to go shopping with her. As I was going out the door, Paul asked me what was a three letter word that started with a “c’ and was a unit of measure. I answered, “a cup” I assumed he was doing a crossword puzzle.
“Okay, that makes sense”, was the answer I got.
“I’ll be back in an hour or two’ I said as I kissed him good-bye and went out the door.
A few hours later I returned and I found my husband almost in tears, sitting in an empty bathtub.
 
“ I can’t get out of this darn thing.  I can’t get a hold of anything. just get me the hell out of here”.
 
The entire inside of the tub was covered with oil. Beads of water clung to the sides of the tub. The slightest move and he was sliding like a pad of butter in a hot frying pan. He had absolutely no control.
 
 “What did you put in here?” I asked.’
 
“Nothing but a cup of that dam bath oil’. He said it with a look that made me think he thought it was all my fault. It was all I could do to keep from laughing.
 
“Didn’t you read the label’? I answered, I couldn’t look him in the eye without laughing, I tried to look very serious.
“Yes, that’s why I asked you about the three letter word before you left.”
 I had to get a towel to hold on to him because he was also covered with oil. He kept slipping away from me. One slippery naked man in an oil-covered bathtub in constant motion can be funny but at the same time it can be seriously dangerous.
 
By carefully coordinating his movement, we managed to slide him from one side of the tub to the other slowly increasing the speed until we could get one of his legs over the top of the side of the tub. I put towels on the bottom of the tub and one on the floor. He kind of rolled over the top and slide on to the floor. By the time we got him out of the tub, we are both sitting in the floor laughing? He was bruised all over. I am sure he was in pain. He looked like he could have fallen down a couple of flights of stairs.
 
We were sitting there trying to recover from this ordeal; I got the bottle of Skin So Soft off the sink and looked at the back of the bottle. . The directions said to use ‘one or two cups in the bathtub”. The “a “ in caps was blurred so when he asked me about the unit of measure that started with a “c”. There is a big difference in a “cap of Skin So Soft “ and  “ a CUP full of Skin –So-Soft.
 
The one good thing about this experience was the effect of being covered in bath oil for a couple of hours. I don’t think I have seen a man with softer skin.
 
Many bathtubs are porous. They have a way of absorbing liquids and Skin So Soft was no exception. I thing we still had bath oil, oozing back in the bathwater for weeks after that. incident. I have to add the bathroom smelled great. too.