Okay, I admit it. I have a near-addiction to hotel soaps. They’re free, for one, and they are often appear to be of a high-quality. It’s that pleaure of the travel-sizes in the drug store – small soaps that you can sample without the committment of a 10-pound bar of ivory. Plus, if you still in a hotel for a few days, you can accumulate a fair number of soaps. I would come back to the room to find that they had taken away a bar that had been used once, and replaced it with a fresh one. So I started bringing travel soap dish along to keep that soap in. Then I found myself stowing the brand new one in the luggage, and pulling the hidden, slightly used bar back out again. At the end of the trip, I’d have a large number of brand new bars of soap (two sizes and flavors, usually, the sink, and bath) and one very very slightly used bar.

Not surprisingly, I pretty much exceeded my storage capacity at home for soap, so I’m trying to bathe more at home and be judicious about what I snag from the hotels.