Now I’ve got myself a soap clock. Back in January, 2008, I bought a 16- pack of soap at Costco.  After bringing it home, I was inspired to write a post called “How many more bars of soap will I buy before I die?”

As of today, the last bar of soap from that pack is almost gone. My house has several bathrooms, and I tend to use one of them, almost exclusively, and that’s were that pack of soap was located. Therefore, I can attribute most of the soap use to me. Therefore, I used 16 bars of soap in about 42 months, meaning I use a bar of soap every 2.6 months or, conversely, I use .38 bars of soap per month.

Now, going to the life expectancy tables, I see that I will likely live till age 93, but that seems awfully generous.  This clock says I’ll only live until Thursday, February 7, 2030 (19 more years).   And here is a detailed calculator that takes into account many factors, and it tells me I’ll live until 83, which means I’ll live 28 more years.   28 years = 336 months.   Sounds like a good average.

All I needed to do was translate years into bars of soap, and that is accomplished with simple multiplication: 336 month x .38 bars/month = 127 bars of soap.  If I keep buying big 16-bar value packs, I’m only going to buy 8 more packs of soap before I die.   This makes soap a precious commodity, indeed.   On the other hand, anything you regularly use (pens, eggs, birthday cakes) can serve as a clock.

In case you think I’m obsessed with death, you’re probably right--this is one of the sites that fascinate me.