I saw the commercial on TV a few minutes ago, and I was like, they are talking to me.
Specifically, my dry neck.
Which the ad called “crepey.”
Like Death.
You would think we’d met!
And don’t forget about my desiccated chest.
You know what’s shriveling there.
The ad was too polite to say so, but I’m not.
Prune City, on both sides.
Okay, I’m exaggerating.
Raisin City.
In truth, Bilateral Raisins.
Apparently my body parts are withering away.
There are deserts with more moisture.
I did some research online and found an article that called neck-and-chest creams “décolleté creams.”
Very classy.
Décolleté is French for boobs.
You can tell by the accents.
They have a French accent.
The article said, “We canvassed the market for neck and décolleté creams and found over forty products.”
Forty!
Are there forty types of drugs to fight breast cancer?
Uh, no.
How about ovarian cancer?
Nope.
Are there forty types of birth-control pills?
No.
Are there even forty women CEOs in the entire country?
Sowwy.
Thank God there are forty types of boob cream.
News flash:
I don’t care if my neck and my boobs age.
At least not enough to start slathering cream all over my neck and chest.
I mean, think about this.
We’ve gotten used to the idea that cosmetic companies sell women moisturizers for their face.
But evidently, the companies didn’t make enough money.
So they started selling us neck creams.
But they still didn’t make enough money.
So they went down to the chest.
Will they stop there?
What do you think?
Remember, before you answer, that this is a capitalist country.
Still.
So of course, they won’t stop there.
Your dry belly is their profit center.
And don’t make me go further south.
A gold mine!
If they don’t stop there, where will they stop?
It’s a slippery slope, ladies.
But evidently, it’s not slippery enough.
Take it from me, they won’t stop until we’re greased pigs, head to toe.
Until every square inch of us is slathered with costly lubricants.
We’ll have to shovel the goop on us with a trowel.
We won’t ever be able to get dressed.
Because the emollients will never sink in.
Dogs will lick us all over.
And if we have to leave the house, we will simply lay our clothes on the floor and slither into them like girl snakes.
Because the alleged point of the creams is that they stop aging.
I saw an ad for a face-and-neck cream that said, “Turn Back the Hands of Time.”
I don’t mean to get all science-y on you, but that’s not possible.
You know how I know?
Professor Cher taught me.
And if Cher can’t turn back time, nobody can.
There is only one part of my body that gets dry enough for me to bother moisturizing.
And that’s my feet.
And you know what I use on my dry feet?
It’s called Bag Balm.
Not because I’m a bag.
Because it’s used on cow udders.
It’s made by the Dairy Association Company, has been sold since 1899, and it comes in a green tin. On the side of the tin, it reads, “After each milking, apply thoroughly and allow coating to remain on surface.”
I’m not even kidding.
Because evidently all of us girls have problems with our décolleté.
The online ad for Bag Balm says, “It’s not just for cows anymore!”
Now that’s marketing.
And by that they mean, it’s for dog paws.
It cost seven dollars.
It won’t make any cosmetic company rich.
But if I were you, I’d buy some and skip the other creams.
After all, what do they think we are?
Boobs?
Barking up the Wrong Tree
Francesca
YOUR DOG IS BARKING LONG AND LOUD AND LATE. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
That’s what was written on a piece of paper taped to my front door in the morning.
Who left it? The note was unsigned. My apartment hallway was empty.
Most puzzling, Pip had not been barking. He had snoozed soundly in my bed in various positions around and on top of my head all night.
So, what on earth was she talking about?
I say “she” because this nasty note was written in incongruously loopy script. It was only missing the hearts dotting the i’s.
Plus, the passive aggression in leaving an anonymous complaint taped to my door, when it just as easily could have been slipped underneath, said “mean girl.”
This was the girl’s bathroom approach to resolving neighborly conflict.
Clearly this was a misunderstanding. The most likely explanation was that she was hearing a different dog barking, one that would presumably continue barking, while she would continue to falsely accuse me and my dog. But since she hadn’t signed the note, I had no way of reaching her to clear it up.
I believe there’s a beagle down the hall, but I wasn’t about to start pointing fingers at neighbor dogs.
I’m no snitch.
It was a preposterous accusation, I threw out the note and hoped the problem would sort itself out.
Then a terrifying thought: what if she told the co-op board?
Co-op boards in New York apartment buildings are like illuminati. No one is sure exactly who they are, but they control everything and rule by fiat. Pip and I both had to interview with a member of the board to get my apartment. My dog’s politeness is a requirement for living here.
If he got a reputation for bad behavior, we could be out on the street!
The injustice of it was very upsetting. Pip is my baby, my angel, my pride and joy. He is the best-behaved dog I’ve ever had.
He is also the worst watchdog I have ever had.
He’s almost purebred teddy bear, and he has few vestigial dog instincts. He never barks at noises outside, from other apartments, or even direct knocks on my door.
When the Chinese-food-delivery guy buzzes, he barely lifts his head off the couch and looks at me, like, “You gonna get that?”
The anti-watchdog
In fact, when my old apartment was burglarized, he was completely silent as the burglars broke my window, gathered all my Apple electronics, and left out my front door carrying my items in my Lisa Scottoline promotional tote bag!
If nothing else, he should have barked at the irony.
But that night, my next-door neighbors didn’t hear a peep.
This was the witness-stand testimony I rehearsed in my mind.
Although I was confident in my dog’s innocence, the note made me paranoid. I felt guilty.
Over the next few days, if he yipped once during playtime, I’d rush to shush him. I feared every neighbor I passed going in and out of the building was potentially the one who secretly hated us.
Then a few weeks later, just when we started to get comfortable again, another note:
YOUR DOG BARKS FOR HOURS ON END, ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT. LEAVING YOUR DOG ALONE IS UNFAIR TO YOUR DOG, UNFAIR TO YOUR NEIGBHORS, AND AGAINST THE LAW. FIX IT OR I WILL CALL THE POLICE!!!
Gurl, no. You did not just accuse me of being a bad dog mother.
If the threat to call the police was meant to intimidate me, it had the opposite effect. It snapped me to attention.