My neighbor swore by Palmolive... I almost got into a fistfight over dish soap last Tuesday

I was out back cleaning my grill grates with Dawn, the regular blue kind, and my neighbor Gary comes stomping over holding a half empty bottle of Palmolive. He tells me I'm wasting my time with Dawn because Palmolive cuts grease better and smells nicer. I told him I've used Dawn for 15 years and never had a problem, and he got all red in the face and started listing off some test he saw online about grease bubbles. Then he shoved his Palmolive bottle at me and said to try it right then or he'd never talk to me again. So I took it, squeezed some on a sponge, and honestly it did pretty good on the grill grates but I still like how Dawn feels on my hands after. Has anyone else had a neighbor or friend get weirdly defensive about their dish soap choice like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

claire_grant3419d ago

Think about this one step further - what if Gary's not just defending Palmolive but the specific memory attached to it? My uncle gets the same way about Palmolive because his mom used it her whole life and he says it reminds him of Sunday dinners. Maybe your neighbor had a grandmother who swore by Palmolive too, and when you rejected his bottle you accidentally rejected that whole memory for him. People get weird about nostalgia products even when they don't realize they're doing it. That would explain why he was willing to fistfight over dish soap, because it wasn't really about the soap at all.

shane_clark19d ago

And I'm over here getting emotional about the smell of a specific brand of trash bags because my mom used them when I was a kid, so I totally get where you're coming from. Honestly I didn't even realize I had a weird bond with Glad ForceFlex until I moved out and bought the cheap store brand ones and felt genuinely disappointed when I opened the box. That's probably why Gary got so heated, he's not protecting Palmolive, he's defending his grandma's kitchen. Now I'm wondering if there's some scent or brand your neighbor secretly associates with a happy moment too. What's the weirdest product you've ever seen someone get defensive about?

pat78119d ago

Does anyone else still buy the same weird off-brand ketchup just because their dad used it for hot dogs?