Bellybutton Lint (Melissa)

--My challenge, from Melissa of Bobo-isms: Blog on bellybutton lint, and be subtle.

People are multi-faceted. It's a good thing. When you meet me, you'll first see my body, my posture, then you'll hear my voice, then my words; you'll see the face I present, that social projection, and then you'll start getting to know who I am behind that projection. Eventually you'll begin to get to know my deeper self, you'll encounter my hidden strengths, my weaknesses, my eccentricities; my habits, beliefs, inspirations. You'll see different things, different aspects of each of these things, all the time, as I'm always changing, and forever undulating under the light of your perception. I swagger and meander, I shoot for the stars I am stellar. And so are you. All this applies to you too.

One thing you may not see for awhile is my belly button.

--

"We've got some promising applicants, Jim," Gary Kreller, CEO of Towder Inc. said to the VP, "and one of them stands out above the rest: Kyle Orion Turner-Gorder. Aside from his bizarre name and completely meaningless initials, his resume shows him to be exactly what we're looking for."

Jim Peters nodded. "Except, he's got some bellybutton lint."

"Oh?"

"Yes. His references are excellent, but when I called his previous employers I found that he'd been pulled into some company drama. Nothing dramatic, and nothing caused by him, but, there were some problems."

"Well," Kreller said with a forgiving shrug, "Companies have their drama. The important thing is that he wasn't the instigator."

"Well, no one asks for bellybutton lint, sir, but the choice to wear the sweater without an undershirt belongs to the wearer. He's been involved in company dramas at multiple companies. He always gets involved. He's doesn't propel it forward, but he doesn't avoid it either."

"Ah. A man who doesn't clean out his bellybutton."

"I'm not sure if we want a man who doesn't clean out his bellybutton. And especially not a man who doesn't learn to wear undershirts."

"Well, I guess Kyle Orion Turner-Gorder is out of the picture."

--

I don't have any skeletons in my closet. Nothing so dramatic as that. I imagine you don't either. What I do have, is a bit of bellybutton lint. Some things happen to me, and I don't consider them to be serious issues, so I'll allow them to continue happening without taking steps to prevent it. Much like bellybutton lint. Oh, we'll clean it out every once in a while. Get our life in order. Buck up. Resolve conflicts. But is it really worth it to us to change our habits? To wear that undershirt? To seek out lint free garments? It's just lint, after all. It doesn't even come from us. Merely incidental.

Bellybuttons, I'm told, can be a little sexy. You're seeing someone's vulnerable areas, seeing into their private life. Finding a bit of lint can be charming and endearing. What if you found lint every time you looked? You might start to wonder, why is this person's bellybutton always lint-filled?

But don't wear an undershirt for others, wear it for yourself. Just like having a clean room can lend some sanity to your life, so too, subtly, can having a clean bellybutton.

And guys, don't whip out your lint on the first date.