Kishore Singh: Puzzle in a package

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It was my visiting uncle who sounded the alarm bell at home. "I cannot," he insisted, "have any mustard that comes out of a tube. It looks rather like ointment." "Or Burnol," chipped in my son, at which my wife said "Oh, well!" and removed the offending tube from the breakfast table, fetching us a jar of mustard from the fridge to have with our sausages.

Maybe it's just age, or maybe it is the packaging that's the cause, but it does feel slightly offensive when you get cream (such as you can eat) out of a can in much the same way that you get shaving foam. Nor can I discount the face our neighbour made when she asked for "a little whipped cream on my cake", for who knows if our cook (who can't read) exchanged the one for the other.

It probably serves her right, but just last week I'd squeezed out what I thought was a hand creme from a beautifully shaped bottle and rubbed it into my fingers before leaving for work. Holding the steering of the car with what were clearly sticky fingers, I remembered to call my wife to say we should, in future, desist from a hand lotion so gummy and gooey. "That's a good idea," said my wife, "but it might be better if you did use a hand cream and not a liquid soap, as you've so clearly done."

Now I don't see how I'm to be blamed for such mistakes with the washroom a boobytrap of jars and bottles and containers, of shampoos that are now also powders, and body soaps masquerading as body lotions. The other day I emerged from the shower shimmering with a "body makeover" that seemed to consist entirely of silver sparkles, when all I'd done (or so I thought) was to lather myself with a body wash. But since soaps now come not in bars but in squeezy containers that look one like the other, I must confess to having used mascara once, a hair serum another time, and everything else from astringent to a hair depilitator instead of the customary bathing "tonic", as it's also apparently called.

After all, who's to tell what the difference between a shower gel and a hair gel is, or for that matter between cleansing gel and cleansing water? How's a body toner different from a body scrub? What does a foot cleanser have that a hand cleanser doesn't? When is a body lotion a tonic, or vice versa?

Perhaps the problem lies in having two teenagers at home who've invaded every territory with their face-packs and gels, moisturisers and mouthwash. "Who," demanded my daughter only last week, "finished my styling mousse?" "Uh-oh," I confessed, "I think I ate it by mistake."

What with deos and eau de toilettes, conditioners and colognes, oils, unguents and foaming gel bodywash, it's getting difficult to find something as simple as the toothpaste. Only yesterday, when I was yelling because I couldn't find whatever it is you need these days to wash your face, my son said me me, "Here, use this herbal face pack." "I don't want a face pack," I explained patiently, "what I need is some old-fashioned soap." "Tut-tut," said my son, "you know how dehydrating that is for your skin? Instead, I suggest using a skin rejuvenating mask." "Please," I pleaded, "you can experiment all you want, but all I need is to wash my face since I'm in a hurry to get to a meeting." "What you need in that case," said my daughter, sounding like a television commercial, "is this insta-rejuvenating pack."

Later, at the meeting, I couldn't help wondering if that suspicious smell coming from my hands was mustard from a tube that I'd mistaken for ointment.