It goes by all kinds of names. 

Sponge bath. Spot clean. Pit stop. Freshen up. Bird bath.

And the infamous whore bath, a term I’ve never liked very much. I was in high school the first time I was introduced to the term, and the connotation of a string of unscrupulous sexual acts combined with a splash and dash cleanup didn’t appeal to my sense of propriety nor cleanliness.

We called it ragging off.

I had to look up the term to see if it exists online, and I learned that it refers to a painting technique whereby a layer of paint or glaze is applied to a surface and then removed with a rag or a washcloth while it’s still wet.

For us, ragging off had an entirely different meaning.

Let’s say you’re getting sick, and it’s all you can do make it home and haul your bones in the house. You make it to the toilet, and have mercy, you’ve got it coming out both ends. You might sleep in the bathroom floor, but a cold wet wash rag is the balm of Gilead, until you need to hug the bowl again.

Maybe the power is out, and you’re having to rough it in close quarters with your loved ones during a natural disaster.

You better be, at the very least, ragging off, or they might vote you off the proverbial island.

Ragging off includes washing, in this exact order, your face, underarms, butt, and feet. You must use soap and water.

This is no time for a loofah or a poofah with sudsy shower gel. You need a bar of Lux or Lifebuoy. It is a spartan affair with a simple purpose.

Of course, depending on the circumstances, you might give one part more attention than another. Those individuals with bidets have the option of a refreshing butt bath any time, but what do they use to dry off? Monogrammed Egyptian linens? I think not. At my house, if we had a bidet, it’s gonna be the pitiful looking rags that get the privilege of blotting the bottom.

If you’ve been outside in flip flops, and you step in a mudhole or a pile of dog doo, there would be a need to rag off your feet.

I attempted to give my shih-tzu dog Coco a bit of a rag off last night. She was suffering from intestinal distress after Easter dinner. One of our guests probably slipped her a piece of deviled egg, or a bite of meat, or something else too heavy for her delicate system to tolerate, or else she indulged in crumbs and tidbits found on the floor.

Since she had just had a bath on Sunday, I figured let’s get out the wipes.

I have some extra-large wipes that work great for a normal doggie wipedown, and they’re also perfect for guarding a hand when needing to pluck a dingleberry from a dog’s backside.

Now you must know that Coco is a very hairy shih-tzu. The last grooming and official haircut she had was in January. Youngest Daughter trimmed her ears last week, giving her flat face a perfectly round Moon-Pie appearance.

If only she had trimmed around her backside.

I can’t begin to describe what I felt, but the stiff, dried texture combined with the smell of rotting innards set me to gagging. Strands of her glorious puff of a tail had become enmeshed with soured digestive remnants. 

“Mom, are you okay?” It’s rare that Youngest Daughter checks on me, but my retching drew a concerned response that lets me know that my teenager does, indeed, love me.

This was no rag off job. This was going to be a pressure washing.

We managed with a rear-end alignment. A shih-tzu’s version of a bidet experience. It was not exactly a full-blown bath, but she sat in the sink and got a scrubbing, plus hair removal that came just shy of a Brazilian.

She refused to look at me when I dried her off. I wouldn’t look at me either, after all that.

Ragging off is the perfect term to describe that quick wash of whatever body parts need attention. It is for rugged people living in an uncertain world who don’t always have the time for the niceties of civilized living. It is for brave warriors in the field, or tired conscripts of the working world, or servicemen and women caring for their children.

But it is absolutely not for fine bred, hairy shih-tzu dogs.