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In this episode of 7 Minute Stories, Aaron has a strange ritual he’s a little embarrassed to admit. It happens quietly at the end of every season. A small moment that most people would overlook, but one he’s come to treat with surprising care. At first it seems odd. Maybe even a little obsessive. But the deeper you go, the more it begins to feel familiar. Because beneath the surface is something deeply human...
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The Team:
Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional vocals: Cori Calafato
Art: Pete Whitehead
Original Theme Music: thomas j. duke
Additional Soundscape Design: Isaac Gehring
TRANSCRIPT
So I have this ritual. And honestly, I feel a little nervous telling you about it…
Still, this one is a little odd.
It begins with my love of soap. Bar soap specifically.
I love washing my hands. I love taking showers. I love the feeling of being clean. Yes, there’s probably a little germaphobe in there somewhere, maybe even a touch of OCD.
But it’s more than that.
There’s something remarkable about the fact that we live in a world filled with dirt and germs and chaos, yet we have this invention that allows us to literally wash it away.
We can step into a shower dirty and step out fresh.
It’s almost like a tiny baptism every day.
Think about it.
Imagine living in the Stone Age. You’re rolling around in dirt and moss. Hunting mastodons. Running from saber-tooth tigers. Everyone is covered in fur and blood and sweat and whatever else.
At some point someone must have stepped into a freezing stream before winter and thought, “This is refreshing.”
And maybe they wondered if there was a better way.
So when I walk into a bathroom and see soap, I don’t think of it as ordinary.
I think of it as a small miracle.
You can actually find me sometimes standing in a soap store just sniffing bars of soap.
My wife Cori will take me into Bath & Body Works and I’ll immediately head for the sink just to wash my hands and try whatever soap they’ve got out.
“What are you doing?” she’ll ask.
“Trying the soap.”
You ever have that friend or relative whose house you visit and when you wash your hands you suddenly think, “Where did they get this incredible soap?”
My mother-in-law is like that. Every time I visit her house she’s ahead of the curve. She sets the tone.
But a few years ago something happened that turned my love of soap into a ritual.
Cori started buying me these big bricks of what I can only describe as “man soap.”
You know the kind.
Fresh-cut wood. Pine forest. Cracked ice and smoke. Bourbon barrel and mesquite.
So I started doing something with them.
I began aligning the scents with the seasons.
Spring has a scent.
Summer has a scent.
Fall has a scent.
Winter has a scent.
And I refuse to use a scent that doesn’t belong to the season we’re in.
Right now I’m at the end of my winter soap.
Soon it’ll be time for the spring scent. Something like fresh water over clean stone.
But here’s where the ritual comes in.
For the last year, every time I’m nearing the end of a season, I look at the soap before I shower.
Is it time?
Usually the bar is down to a tiny sliver. About the size of my pinky.
That means the moment has arrived.
So I take that last piece of soap out of the shower.
Then I reach into the cabinet and pull out the new bar.
It’s still inside the box.
I stand over the sink.
And I hold the tiny piece of soap for a moment, almost like I’m saying goodbye to the season.
Then I drop it down the drain.
I turn on the hot water and watch it slowly melt away.
Just like the season fading.
Then I lift up the new box.
The sun is usually coming through the window. I open the box slowly and pull out the fresh bar of soap.
A new scent.
A new season.
And I hold it there for a moment before stepping into the shower.
Now, who does that?
Probably not many people.
But here’s the thing.
Maybe your ritual isn’t soap.
But we all have something.
Rituals ground us.
They remind us where we are in time. They tether us to something steady when the world feels chaotic.
Because the truth is we forget things easily.
We forget good advice. We forget lessons. We forget what matters.
That’s why rituals exist.
They help us remember.
So yes, maybe my soap ritual is a little strange.
But it’s also deeply human.
And if you happen to see a bar of soap in a store sometime this week…Think of me.
You might just discover a ritual of your own.
I’ll talk to you next week.
