I think frequent small pleasures are important. One of my favorite small pleasures is soap. In particular I look forward to alternating what kind of soap I use in the shower. I get a little pleasure at the store deciding if I want to use Safe Guard or Dial or Coast or Irish Spring this month. I get a little pleasure when I open up a bar of soap and smell the strong fresh smell that is different from the bar I just finished up. And I get a little pleasure just lathering up in the morning because the crisp fragrance of the soap is one of the first stimuli of the day for me.

Anyway, with that big lead in, about two years ago we were getting ready to go to a check-out line at Wal-Mart. We passed a big display of Old Spice soap. They had 8-bar packages on sale for one measly dollar! That is only 12.5¢ per bar. How could I pass that up. But wait, I hate Old Spice. Something in it actually gives me a headache. If I am around someone wearing it for more than five minutes my nose will literally start to burn and I can feel the beginnings of a headache. I put my nose up to the package and took a deep breath. Excellent! It wasn't the traditional Old Spice fragrance. It actually smelled similar to Coast. I took a few more deep whiffs to see if I could detect any nose burning or headache beginnings. Nope. A good smelling soap for only 12.5¢ per bar.

I didn't have a cart so I could only get what I could carry, which was five of the 8-bar packages. Forty bars of soap for $5. I think a good price for a regular bar of soap is $0.50 (I'm not sure, it's been so long since I have had to buy shower soap.) which means I saved something like $15. Maybe more. If the normal price is a dollar a bar I saved about $35.

What I didn't realize at the time, though, is that I was going to lose of one of my favorite small joys for a couple years. This week I finally opened the last of the big packages of soap. Eight more bars and I can once again enjoy my little ritual of picking out the perfect package of shower soap every now and then at the grocery store.

I did get to spice things up a little bit occasionally. For my first shower of the day I always use a deodorant soap. If I need to take a second shower because of yard work, exercising, etc. I use a soap that might be a little better for my skin, therefore I always keep two bars of soap going in the shower.