I blinked. "Bar of SOAP?!?"
"Yeh, on the driveway...near the pipe."
"Pipe...you mean the hose pipe?"
"Yeh." He seemed puzzled, but yet oddly unphased. "Maybe the newspaper guy's trying to tell us something."
"New bar or used??"
"Used, but pretty big."
"Whoa!! Maybe somebody was using our hose to take a shower!" Well heck, in today's bad economy and a growing homeless population, somehow that was the first explanation that popped into my head!
"I'm sure we would've heard the pipe."
"But we were SLEEPING! Wow, this is disturbing, why aren't you disturbed?"
A few minutes later he went out again, getting ready to leave for work. I couldn't stand it, so I changed out of my nightgown into my t-shirt and shorts and went outside to look at the soap.
Sure enough, it was lying there on the driveway at the corner of our carport near the hose: a golden yellow bar, used, but quite big. I stared at it and then at the hose, then back to the soap on the ground. I watch a lot of detective shows, so hey, I figured I may have absorbed some investigative skills. I looked to see if it was wet, but even though it was, that was inconclusive since it was probably morning dew.
Just then I heard the neighbor's garage door open and I looked over, hoping someone would come out to help the investigation. Our neighbor Debbie stepped out, bidding us good morning. I'm sure she was surprised to see me outside so early in the morning. I motioned to her, "Hey Debbie, come look at THIS!"
She walked over to the low hedge that separates our houses. "Look!" I said pointing to the ground. "Someone left a bar of soap here! Weird!!"
"Huh?" She squinted in the early morning light. "MY SOAP!!!!! I've been looking all over for that!! That's my soap for removing laundry stains, from Kojima Store! That JONATHAN probably threw it there! I'm so sorrrry!!"
SORRY!??! No need to be sorry for giving us a hilarious mystery!! Hoooo boy that was funny! Especially how I hurried to change my clothes to go look at the soap.
I will say now that Leonard did figure that one out, although I didn't want to mention it earlier in the story. After I gave my "someone used our hose to take a shower in the middle of the night" theory, he said, "Nah, maybe Jonathan threw it there." I somehow thought that was more farfetched than my homeless person theory. What would seven-year-old Jonathan be doing with a bar of soap and why would he toss it into our driveway?! (He's never thrown anything other than a ball and that was into our backyard.) Ah well, looks like Leonard's a better detective than I am even though he never reads murder mysteries and tries not to watch those CSI shows if he can avoid them. [More likely it's because he's a guy and knows little boys way better than I do!]
Heard of that silly song from American Idol, "Pants on the Ground"? Well how's this, General Larry Platt?
"Soap on the ground, soap on the ground
Staring like a fool at the soap on the ground!"
Anyway, it sure gave us a good laugh early in the morning and it's good to know nobody's sneaking into our yard to shower.
But what if the homeless person somehow got into Debbie's locked garage, stole their soap--and maybe even a TOWEL--then came to our yard to use our hose!?
