I suppose the fact that a notorious morning crab can observe anything at 6:15 AM is something of a wonder in itself but I was struck by an interesting observation during my shower the other morning. I was drying what’s left of my hair when I noticed the bumper crop of shampoo bottles perched on every conceivable nook in and around the bathtub. The mere quantity of bottles was absolutely astounding and absolute proof that women live in my house.
Being a man, I have a decidedly pragmatic view of the world so it’s still hard to understand the need for ten or twelve different kinds of shampoo. I can personally attest to the fact that every family member, even the female ones, have but one head of hair. I know, I did a walkabout to check it out. Personally, I buy one bottle of the cheap Suave stuff and I’m good for oh, half a year at least.
Feeling a little claustrophobic at the realization that I was surrounded by plastic bottles with silly names, I began to read: Juicy Green Apple, Fresh Citrus Plus, Kiwi and Strawberry, Protein Milk and Honey, Cleansing Oatmeal. They were coming at me so fast it was like I’d landed in some old Twilight Zone where women take over the world and replace all the men with shampoo bottles. Everything is in black and white except for the endless purple and green and orange bottles surrounding our perplexed hero.
Though I rarely have time for breakfast I suddenly had a strong urge to burst out of the bathroom and into the colorized world to stuff myself with a steaming bowl of oatmeal, topped with protein rich milk and honey and maybe a little fruit cocktail on the side. Mostly, I just wanted to escape the bottles, bottles, those endless bottles! I resisted the urge for breakfast and instead spent the drive to work thinking about what Madison Avenue chumps we all are.
They sell us everything from iPods to Izods, Mega-Box Stores to Middle Eastern Oil Wars, from power ties to Dancercise to fast food fries. We blindly follow every pitch for pre-washed jeans to pre-worn out shoes for teens... with double upper and tongue, no less. When they tell us to stamp barcodes on our foreheads, we’ll do it for the Feds. Just tell us it’ll fight illegal immigration and we’ll gladly become a tattooed nation.
Maybe I’m reading too much into all that. For now I only want to know what on earth Juicy Green Apples have to do with clean hair. I actually consider pouring a glass of apple cider over my head just to prove a point but I know I’d hate the sticky mess, not to mention the swarm of bees I’m likely to attract.
I close my eyes and there’s the bottle of Garnier Fructus. Now that one really threw me. Garnier is French and what the hell do the French know about hygiene? And Fructus? What is that? I brushed up on my Latin and found out that fructus is, what else, fruit. Big surprise. The sneaky French apparently know enough about hygiene to work a little fruit into the name, probably realizing fructus would make most American think of fructose, which is sugar, and who likes sugar better than Americans?
Those French really are crafty little double-entendre spewing buggers aren’t they? I had actually forgotten why we’re supposed to hate them but it’s all coming back now. What a tangled web those smelly but clean-haired French bastards weave, eh?
I blink again and there, Down Under the window sill, I see purple bottles of, you guessed it, Aussie shampoos. By now I’m quite certain everyone knows that the Aussies are the final word on clean hair. They stay away from the fruit/breakfast theme preferring names like Sydney Smooth, Catch the Wave, and my personal favorite, the no-nonsense sounding Three Minute Rebuilding Formula. No fru-fru Frenchy Fructis fruity fruit here, this is serious hair cleansing going on. This is Sydney smooth, wave catching hair, Mate! No wonder we like them better than those tricky French.
On second thought, maybe those Aussies aren’t so sharp after all. I mean, they missed out on the Kiwi Shampoo and they’re right there next to New Zealand, where there are so many Kiwis that the people are actually called Kiwi’s. New Zealand is so close to Australia, it's really just Australia Lite, for crying out loud. The Aussies are so busy catching Sydney Waves and throwing shrimps on the Barbee and calling each other Matey that they missed what was right down under their fake British accented noses.
It’s all so convoluted and confusing. As far as I’m concerned all shampoo is pretty much the same formula with different coloring and scents. I realize that women around the world will nearly unanimously tell me how wrong I am but it all seems to work about the same on my hair.
I spent the day in deep shampoo-related xenophobic thoughts and wondering how I’d managed to work hating the French and liking New Zealanders into it. Or do we hate New Zealanders and like the Aussies? I can never keep that stuff straight and as evening approaches, I vow to check Wikipedia to find out who it is that we do and don’t like and what any of this has to do with Shampoo. Wait, I remember: Madison Avenue, blatant consumerism and voting for the candidates with the most TV ads... or something like that.
Finally I drop into bed exhausted after a long day of thinking. Back breaking labor is one thing but all this thinking is grueling! I close my eyes, relieved not to see shampoo bottles and thank my lucky stars that I’m a pragmatic male, impervious to silly Madison Avenue advertising gimmicks.
I drift off to visions of my High School dream car; a 1970 GTO Judge. You know the one, bright orange with black stripes down the side and the words “The Judge” on the quarter panel. ‘Here come da Judge’, the ads said. ‘Here come da Judge.’ Now what could be badder than that?
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