An ancient time ago, when I was in grad school, one of the touchy-feely things we did in class one day was that each student was given “a million dollars” to spend on a select number of items for which we had to bid. Some of the items included material things, like cars and boats and houses. Some included less tangible things, like a best friend who always listened to you, or good health. Most of the students in the class spread their money over ten or fifteen things.

I looked over the list and looked over my funny money. I ended up putting it all on only three items. First, I gave away 1/10 of the money as a tithe. Secondly, I chose to buy an island. Several others bid on the island, too, but had spread their money too thin. Yeah! I bought myself my first-ever (and only-ever) island. Yeah!

The second thing I bid on for nearly half a million dollars, was to never have to bathe again.  When my hand quickly shot up for the bid, those closest to me scooted their chairs away. Seems I only needed to spend one dollar of funny money, since no one else bid on that particular item. I didn’t regret it, though. I felt it was (would be) well worth it. But because I could tell my fellow students were mentally putting me in an entirely different class of animal from them, my social awareness kicked in and I felt I needed to defend my choice.

“Oh, you all just thought it meant never taking a shower or bath again,” I said. “I wouldn’t need to spend half a million dollars to do that.” I laughed lightly. No one else joined in. I swallowed and continued. “What I’m buying for that amount of money is a machine, a machine where in about two minutes, I could walk through each morning and be washed, shampooed, makeup-ed, and dried and hair styled. I hate wasting a necessary hour or more each day to do that. In just one week, I’d have about 7 hours free which I didn’t have before. What I’m really buying for my half a mill is seven free hours each week.”

With that explanation, nearly everyone in class nodded and grunted an affirmation of the length of time taken to do one’s toiletry every morning. I felt relieved that they felt relieved. Explainations are a good thing.

Sure, they agreed with the time factor, but none of them moved back any closer to me for the rest of the class time.