Saturday, January 9, 2010

Eau de Joy

In the dusty bottom drawer of the bathroom vanity I have (at current consumption rates) several lifetimes’ worth of men’s toilet water (or “Eau de Cologne” as marketers prefer to call it). You may ask; “Why do you have such a large stockpile of these potions?” Well my friends, I have such a large quantity because I acquired them before I married. After I married, I discovered they don’t work nearly as well as advertised.

In the commercials, the faintest whiff of cologne drives women crazy with desire—causing them to stop what they’re doing, remove some of their clothing and throw themselves at you. In reality, several drops will usually elicit a compliment from my wife but she doesn’t stop vacuuming or doing the dishes and attack me like she should.

In fact, according to my wife, the scent of a single drop of dish soap on MY hands (assuming it was legitimately acquired in the sink with actual dirty dishes) is a better aphrodisiac than an expensive bottle of cologne containing “a masculine blend of botanics, spices, and rare woods.”

If these concoctions worked as advertised I’d have only empty bottles, but over time I’ve discovered that no amount of cologne cures feminine headaches, fatigue or monthly “ills.” There’s actually a web site where they rate colognes by recommended age and use. I searched all of the best sellers for a cologne where the recommended use was “getting your wife to stop doing the dishes and come to bed.” Sadly, my search returned no results. The guy who comes up with this fragrance will make billions.

When men are dating, they believe that several drops of strategically applied eau de cologne will cause women (and their fathers) to overlook acne, strange body noises, bad algebra grades, crappy cars, dead-end jobs and poor financial planning—it doesn’t. Women notice that you smell nice but they still want to see the report card and bank statements. After you’re married you only hope your expensive fragrances will erase your wife’s memory of the aroma you released in the car.

After 1.634784 decades of marriage I have discovered that colognes do work as advertised approximately twice annually (wedding anniversaries and Valentines Day). Strangely, no amount of cologne works as advertised on Super Bowl Sunday. Well, I suppose it might if you mixed liberally with dish soap and abstained from watching football.

Since partially consumed bottles of cologne have limited resale value I guess I’ll save them to hand down to my son once he starts combing his own hair and wearing deodorant. Of course he’ll only get the bottles where the recommended age is “grandpa” and the recommended use is “repelling teenage girls.”

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to the kitchen sink to try some “eau de Joy" on my wife.

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