Sweet Pea and Violet

I screwed up the other day. It has to do with shopping, an activity I detest. So, when it must be done, I try to get the shopping over with quickly. When I shop for groceries or any hygene-related items like toothpaste, floss, deoderant, I like to be in and out of the store within 5 minutes. (Provided I am alone, I can do this; but if I'm with a girl friend, it can be a Living Hell and I'm lucky to be out of there within an hour.)

My (grocery) shopping routine is as follows: On my way home from work or a bike ride, I will pass a store, then ride onto the sidewalk in front of the store or into the parking lot if it has one, lock my bike to a rack or a sign or a meter near the front entrance, go in the store, grab a basket (usually kept on the inside of the electric (big stores have doors equipped with motion detectors that opens them automatically) doorway as you enter) and pick out what I need as I walk along the perimeter of the store. I almost never go into the aisles. Grocery store aisles are not my thing.

So, the other day, it was hot. Hot enough that I could smell my own BO. On my bike ride home, it was so bad that the patchouli wasn't able to mask the stink. I needed to take care of this problem. Upon climbing one long, steep hill, I saw a grocery store off to the left and went in the way I just described for a few groceries and deoderant. After circling the perimenter for some produce and yogurt and beer, I still hadnt' found the deoderant. Unfortunately, the deoderant/toothpaste/baking soda usually lives somewhere in the aisles. I gritted my teeth and went into the aisles and searched until I found the deoderant. I grabbed something in a blue container and on sale. I thought to myself: The pink containers were female deoderant products, this one is blue (men) and on sale. Mission accomplished, and it hasn't been 5 minutes yet.

So, this morning I My gf, Alice, noticed I smelled funny. She read to me the label on my newly purchased deoderant I had just used: "Sweat Pea and Violet." I still didn't grok what she was trying to tell me. She explained to me that's a scent men ought not wear. Next time I'll look for an "Unscented" label.

 

Hahaha, nice. I have a real problem with sweating. In Israel its not so bad because even in the desert its usually a very dry type of heat. Here? Walking out of the airport can be a real life lesson. On those rare occasions that I will actually agree to meet someone at the airport...shit...here comes the "Shandy' again: In Ph. Only the tocketed passenger can ever enter the actual airport unlike the West where anyone can get in, outside of the security belts. So, there are cinderblock bldgs.that look like prisons where people wait for arrivals.Back to thought: When I wait, I love to sit and watch people coming out from that (usually) air conditioned bldg.The humidity and heat can actually make them stagger! Helps kill time anyway.

As I was originally saying, I sweat way too much, thinking about getting medication for it.

 

hahahaha That is awesome!
You describe perfectly a "Boy Look" -
When my husband searches for things he does this scan, expecting that what he is looking for will jump out instead of actually looking at what is in front of him-
I can so picture the grocery store scene
Sweet Peas and Violets do smell good though

 

My gf and I have very different shopping styles. She examines everything very carefully. She went on to say that although my deoderent "Sweet Pea and Violet" wasn't labeled for gender, I should have known that it was for women since the color was "sky blue." If I really looked at the products at the store, I would have known this. She asked, "Didn't anybody give you an odd look when they saw you buying that?"She went on to inform me that, contrary to waht I had assumed, femine toiletry product packaging is often sky blue (not pink) while men's is often dark blue or forest green.


On Tristam Shandy: I've been through that kind of experience with intense heat. The hottest I've been was in the Central Valley of California where the temperature reading was 115 - 120 degrees during the day for a few weeks. It was a "dry" heat with around 20 - 40% humidity, but still, when leaving the AC and going outside it felt like you were walking in an oven.

I notice I sweat sooner and more profusely as I've gotten more into cycling and running. My working "hypothesis" on this is that as your level of physical fitness improves, your body becomes more efficient at cooling itself to remove the excess heat generated by intense exercise. In this case it is by sweating buckets. Maybe this reaction is normal? Conversely, I get cold very easy. Today, the temp is in the 60s and I'm wearing a sweater.