By Pat Cashman

I stopped snooping around in my kids’ rooms some time ago. They, after all, don’t live in my house anymore---and it would be weird to drive way across town, sneak into their homes---and begin snooping all over again.
My daughter, Kate---now a fully independent woman---reminded me of my penchant for suspicion when she was a kid.

KATE: What were you looking for anyway?

DAD: My money, mostly.

KATE: A kid’s bedroom ought to be off-limits to parental snoopery, if you ask me. It’s a sanctuary.

DAD: Last time I saw your old sanctuary it was stacked pretty high with dishes, pop cans, magazines and shoes.

KATE: It happens.

DAD: Your room also had a framed picture of a naked man on the wall. What was the story with that?

KATE: You mean David? Yea, he was a favorite of mine.

DAD: Who was David---a member of a boy band? An actor? A porn star?

KATE: No. The picture was of Michelangelo’s famous statue of David. I saw it seven times in person at a museum in Florence.

ME: Florence? Isn’t that on the Oregon coast?

KATE: The one I’m thinking of is in Italy. Remember? I spent a semester there when I was in college.

DAD: So that’s where my money went.

KATE: David is considered a masterpiece, you know.

DAD: That statue in Fremont, ‘Waiting for the Interurban’ is a masterpiece. At least all of those people are wearing clothes. David is an OK statue, I guess. But even so, would it have killed the guy to be wearing a pair of pants and a nice turtleneck -sweater?

KATE: That statue is 500 years old. You should look so good.

DAD: I remember reading---maybe ten years ago---that the David statue got all the 500 years of accumulated grime and grit cleaned off.

KATE: I just hope they didn’t use “Scrubbing Bubbles.” The thought of those creepy little grinning brushes running up and down David sort of makes me sick.

DAD: Would you have preferred Mr. Clean instead?

KATE: Bathing was not something most people did all that often back in Michelangelo’s day, did they?

PAT: The loofa wasn’t invented until the 1700’s, I believe. Actually, I read that personal cleanliness dates back to caveman times. But it must have happened by accident. I figure a guy named Trogg was down by the river one day and accidentally fell in. He might have flailed around in the rapids for a while---smacking over and over again against some rocks of pumice and clay---until he got clean.

KATE: So he was literally agitated.

PAT: They say that ancient Egyptians washed themselves regularly---and of course the Romans had their famous baths. But after the fall of Rome, bathing habits declined in Europe during the Middle Ages.

KATE: I hope that doesn’t hold true during YOUR middle ages.

ME: Why? Have you noticed something?

KATE: It might not be you. Maybe it’s the transfer station down the street.

PAT: You know, romantic figures like Sir Lancelot and Lady Guinevere always look dewy and fresh in the movies---but in real life, they were probably a tad on the gamey side.

KATE: I remember that one of the cutest guys in my high school had the reputation of being a very infrequent bather.

ME: Really? What guy?

KATE: This guy (a picture in Kate’s high school yearbook).

ME: Well, he looks OK in that photo.

KATE: Sure. But it’s a good thing yearbooks aren’t scratch-and-sniff.

PAT: Reminds me of one of my classmates we called “Stinky.” You could pick his scent up a hundred feet away---and when it rained, he made his own gravy.

KATE: Gross.

PAT: But when he got a girlfriend our senior year, he suddenly started bathing all the time---maybe two or three times a day. We stopped calling him “Stinky” and switched to “Pruney.”

KATE: Well, bathed or not, I still think Michelangelo’s David is gorgeous.

PAT: But if he was naked all the time, where did he keep the slingshot that he used to knock off Goliath?

KATE: Do you want to know my theory?

PAT: Not really.

pat@patcashman.com
Pat can be seen on the TV sketch show “Up Late NW” airing on KING 5 Saturdays at 1:00am and Sundays at 11:30pm---and also seen throughout Washington and Oregon. Plus he co-hosts a weekly on-line talk show: Peculiarpodcast.com