The girl before me finishes her story, and the applause of the crowd follows her off the stage. I take a breath, hold it. Release. The sound dies down, slowly. Someone just has to get that last clap. I let them do it, then walk up to the podium. I wish they had left some water or something up here.
“Hi, I’m Sam, and I’ve recently discovered the wonders of baking soda.”
They raise their eyes from their phones momentarily, then return to the glow of the screen. I get it. It’s been a long day of…well, the pamphlet called it a “Self-Improvement Seminar.” One kid in the front row rocks back and forth on his folding chair, the old metal creaking faintly. It’s distracting.
“You know,” I begin, “it started relatively tamely. I love to bake. Cookies, cakes, sachertortes… You name it. Anyway. Lots of recipes call for baking soda. It’s a leavening agent. Reacts with acids to release carbon dioxide. Simple stuff.
“But then one day, I spilled a bunch of it all over. My hands were covered in it, like, totally white.” It’s kinda funny how vividly I recall all of this stuff now. I really should have written a script or something, but winging it seemed appropriate in this venue. “So, just like anyone would, I went to the sink, pumped some soap out, and started to wash it off. But something happened. The stuff mixed with the soap, made a paste, ya know? Real bubbly. By the time I was done, my hands were soft. Like, soft soft. I couldn’t stop touching them. I’ve always had a thing for textures and the like. So I did it again.
“Maybe once a day to start, I’d grab a bit of the stuff out the pantry and just make a big bowl of paste with it and some soap, and just scrub. My hands felt so good. After a while, I thought, ‘What if there’s more?’. But it didn’t come to me until a few days later in the shower. As I was massaging a bit of my regular drugstore exfoliator over my face, I stopped, and it was just like… yeah. I could totally use baking soda for this!”
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