I don’t spend a lot of time writing (or thinking) about products. Most of the crap out there that says it is going to do something never really quite does it the way they say it will. But here are two endorsements.
ChapStick! This stuff really, really works!
The other day I was in such awful pain from chapped lips. Like a shmuck, I kept trying to keep my lips moist with saliva but that just made it worse. And it was so friggin’ cold! I made it down into the subway and saw there was a little newstand there. It was pretty stinkin’ late and the kindly Pashtun fella didn’t really have much for sale. Nuts, gum, magazines of black women with enormous behinds (when oh when will someone get me a subscription to Smooth?) But I take a chance. “Any Chapstick?” And, yes, he does have some. ‘Cause why not? The dang things are so stinkin’ small that they barely take up any room. Why not bulk up?
I crack it open (berry flavored, if you are curious) and instantly I feel better. Like jumping in a pool when you are shvitzing to death. (But, like, reversed.)
Hats off to Chapstick!!!!
(And, another benefit of the flavored kind is in case there is a homeless guy on the subway you can rub the stuff on your upper lip and chase the smell away. Something I had to do five minutes later.)
The other day I took a shower and when it was done I found myself ankle deep in water. Particularly gross water as I was unusually filthy that day. I putzed around with the drain thingie — does anyone else have a tub stopper that is, like, a silver tube next to the tub? Y’know what I mean? It kinda looks like a spare rib of a radiator? Well, anyway, I putzed around with that and nuthin’. I got out the plunger and plunged around and nuthin’. So I waited for Ann to get home.
She unscrewed a wire hanger and performed what I guess you could call a hair and soap scum abortion on the outer layer of the drain. This got the water to go down. . .but slowly. So I got some Drano.
I didn’t think it would work. How could it? How could some dopey product from the 1950s actually solve a problem in my life? I figured, yeah, technically it would remove some of the blockage. . .but there’d still be a problem remant and we’d need to consult a professional. We would have to call our landlord who, as luck would have it, is actually married to a plumber — he’s fixed things for us in the past (when we moved here the plumbing was a disaster.) But I hate calling the landlord. I’ve never actually spoken to her face-to-face and I’d love to just be an abstraction to her. So I went in with the ‘O. And wouldn’t’cha know? The stuff works!
Hats off to Drano!
