we're different, she and i
Several weeks ago, missing our preferred brand of "invisible solid" deodorant—seriously, no powdery residue—which had disappeared from drugstore shelves without explanation, my partner and I took a chance on a competitor's version. I've been known to like said competitor's products in the past, a fact that was thrown in my face when it turned out that this particular product smelled like monkey urine.
Flash forward to our master bathroom this morning, when my partner gleefully slathered her pits with our aforementioned preferred deodorant, freshly reincarnated in zippy new packaging and commercially available once again. Resentment built in my heart as I glowered at the replacement monkey-urine product, which I knew now that she had not been using and which I reckoned I would therefore have to use twice as long, being the sole user, before I too could return to smelling unobjectionable.
Just then she offered to "do" me, which in this case meant that if I would reach for the sky, she would swab my pits as well. "Oh, yay, I'm going to stink pretty today," I said as I threw up my arms.
She gave me a confused look as she gave me two swipes of the good stuff. "Are you still using that?" she asked, indicating with disgust the monkey-urine product on the bathroom counter.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because it's not gone," I answered with conviction.
She picked it up off the counter and threw it into the wastebasket, where it landed with a thud. "Now it is."
It was liberating, for a minute, for a girl who grew up in a household where a new box of cereal or bag of chips must never be opened when anything more than dusty memories remained in another. I left the deodorant where it lay, refusing to even look at its dead-to-me corpse, and finished getting dressed, then blithely went to work. What a revelation!
Still, I can't vouch for what might happen when I get home.
Flash forward to our master bathroom this morning, when my partner gleefully slathered her pits with our aforementioned preferred deodorant, freshly reincarnated in zippy new packaging and commercially available once again. Resentment built in my heart as I glowered at the replacement monkey-urine product, which I knew now that she had not been using and which I reckoned I would therefore have to use twice as long, being the sole user, before I too could return to smelling unobjectionable.
Just then she offered to "do" me, which in this case meant that if I would reach for the sky, she would swab my pits as well. "Oh, yay, I'm going to stink pretty today," I said as I threw up my arms.
She gave me a confused look as she gave me two swipes of the good stuff. "Are you still using that?" she asked, indicating with disgust the monkey-urine product on the bathroom counter.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because it's not gone," I answered with conviction.
She picked it up off the counter and threw it into the wastebasket, where it landed with a thud. "Now it is."
It was liberating, for a minute, for a girl who grew up in a household where a new box of cereal or bag of chips must never be opened when anything more than dusty memories remained in another. I left the deodorant where it lay, refusing to even look at its dead-to-me corpse, and finished getting dressed, then blithely went to work. What a revelation!
Still, I can't vouch for what might happen when I get home.
posted by Teresa | 5:48 PM
2 Comments:
The most liberating experience I ever had was at Magic Mountain on a company night when all the food was free. I went up to the window where they were passing out chicken strip & fry baskets. "I want just the fries," say I. "You have to take the whole basket," says she, "but you can throw away the chicken if you want." Wow. I did it. Double wow. Then I ate the tops off drumsticks and dumped the cone. I have never been so alive.
I do hope you left it in the can!
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