It’s Corporate Communicators Conference week in Chicago!

More than 430 communicators are coming to Chicago, my hometown, for Ragan’s 15th annual CCC conference, which starts tomorrow. I’ll be blogging from the conference for those of you who can’t be here, doing my best to share some good ideas and funny anecdotes.

For those of you who are coming, a word of warning: The conference is at the Hyatt Regency. It’s been a while since I stayed at the Hyatt . . . but I have a very clear memory of the last time I was here, because I had a very traumatic experience that I've never truly gotten over.

Some background:

The Hyatt has what is known as “exfoliating” bars of soap in the guest rooms. In case you don’t know what “exfoliating” means (and I certainly didn’t), it means that there are chunks of sharp rocks and jagged pieces of glass embedded in the soap.

The idea, I suppose, is that these sharp things help scrape the dead skin off your body as you wash with the soap.

But here’s the trick: When you first pick up the soap, you don’t see the jagged rocks and glass. You have to start washing with it first, and then as the soap erodes away, the jagged glass and rocks poke through.

But they don’t tell you that’s going to happen. The soap does not come with instructions. And there is no warning label of any kind on the soap. And that’s how I got into trouble.

When I shower, I have a routine. I start at the top of my head, and then wash down to my feet. Some people start low and then move up; some people go haphazardly around the body; and some people, I’m sure, have no system whatsoever. I’ve always been a top to bottom guy.

Well, the last time I stayed at the Hyatt, I grabbed the bar of “exfoliating” soap (the name comes from the Latin word, exfolia, which means “excruciating pain,”) and started washing with it.

Everything was fine at first. I did my head, my face, my neck, and chest. And then just as I got to, shall we say, the more sensitive parts of the male anatomy, the chunks of glass and rock started to to come out. Of course, since I'm not in the habit of studying the soap I shower with, I didn't see what what was happening. So I kept washing.

At first, I thought it was just an odd sensation. And I actually started scrubbing a little harder. Within five seconds, that odd sensation became a blinding, searing, red-hot flash of pain knifing through the most sensitive area on my body. I dropped the soap, grabbed the wounded area, and staggered out of the shower and over to the bed, still covered with soap, and curled into a fetal position until the pain went away.

When I could walk again, I called my wife Cindy and told her what happened.

When she was done laughing, she told me that you’re not supposed to use that kind of soap in those sensitive areas.

Well . . . shouldn’t that be written somewhere on the packaging? Shouldn’t it say: “Not for use on genitalia,” or some such thing?

And here’s the other problem: The torture soap was the only soap in the room! If you’re going to have one bar of soap with jagged glass and rocks, shouldn’t you have some special testicle soap, too?

So beware, any of you people who are staying at the Hyatt. This episode actually happened a couple of years ago, so maybe they had enough complaints that they got rid of that soap. But maybe not. And if not . . . wash at your own risk. And I don't need to tell you where on your body to start if you are going to risk using the torture soap.

More on the conference later . . . it kicks off tomorrow, Tuesday, with the pre-conference sessions and the Awards Gala . . . and then the moves into full gear on Wednesday.

If you’re a reader of this blog and you’re at the conference, make sure you say hi if you see me. I’ll be all around the joint; I’m doing a pre-con on Tuesday, and then three sessions on Wednesday and Thursday.

If the timing is right, maybe we can blow off a session together and go have a drink at the hotel bar.