THERE'S A SALAD ON MY HEAD.
READ THE AUTHOR'S NOVELLA, TWO FEET - GROWING UP IN SOUTH AFRICA IN THE 1960'S. ON AMAZON.
(As an update, have you tried buying a tube of toothpaste recently? Before I comment, let me know your thoughts -- I don't know about tooth decay, but selecting a tube of toothpaste is rapidly becoming brain decay.)
Had a quiet chuckle a few days ago. Stumbled into the local supermarket come pharmacy to purchase a bottle of shampoo. Liquid soap in a bottle it used to be known as. Pure and simple.
Not any more -- I surveyed line upon line of misshaped bottles -- green, yellow, amber, gold, dark...upright and not upright. Bulbous and lean, some bending toward being phallic shaped; another so sculptured that it resembled an inert human hand.
So I began reading the ingredients and that's when I scoffed out loud which probably confused the platinum blonde beside me, because he hurried away with a toss of a basil scented curl. I can only presume he reacted so because I had interrupted his blissful moment of wondering what next to anoint his scalp of dead, keratinized cells with.
I perused the fine ingredients of some of the bottles with incremental mirth.
Not any more -- I surveyed line upon line of misshaped bottles -- green, yellow, amber, gold, dark...upright and not upright. Bulbous and lean, some bending toward being phallic shaped; another so sculptured that it resembled an inert human hand.
So I began reading the ingredients and that's when I scoffed out loud which probably confused the platinum blonde beside me, because he hurried away with a toss of a basil scented curl. I can only presume he reacted so because I had interrupted his blissful moment of wondering what next to anoint his scalp of dead, keratinized cells with.
I perused the fine ingredients of some of the bottles with incremental mirth.
Avocado and passion fruit, honey and almond, wild herbs and strawberry, lemon zing with a dash of grapefruit (natural no less!), raspberry with mint and selected herbs from India, (I grow mint in the struggling veggie garden and I use it to anoint a good slab of lamb, not my scalp) rose petal and, wait for it, tea. Yes, tea - I simply don't get it.
Give me/us a break here -- we are talking about washing our hair, not dumping the veggie garden on our head, are we?? Mango juice with wild African honey? Not tame honey, nay, but WILD African honey -- I can see the plains of Serengeti, the intrepid shampoo maker dodging a pride of African lion, escaping the wrath of a feeding Hippopotamus as he scours the veld for the wild bee...
I do not jest. Let me ask: Who went out there and did these experiments? Who woke up one morning and squashed a mango, sieved a few strawberries, tossed in a twig of mint and an almond as support and then added bee vomit and then proudly announced that he had created a shampoo? Who?
And the coup de grace here is, we buy this shit! We believe this stuff.
Give me/us a break here -- we are talking about washing our hair, not dumping the veggie garden on our head, are we?? Mango juice with wild African honey? Not tame honey, nay, but WILD African honey -- I can see the plains of Serengeti, the intrepid shampoo maker dodging a pride of African lion, escaping the wrath of a feeding Hippopotamus as he scours the veld for the wild bee...
I do not jest. Let me ask: Who went out there and did these experiments? Who woke up one morning and squashed a mango, sieved a few strawberries, tossed in a twig of mint and an almond as support and then added bee vomit and then proudly announced that he had created a shampoo? Who?
And the coup de grace here is, we buy this shit! We believe this stuff.
Maybe none of this surprises you. It does me -- as a farm kid I grew up with all those ingredients so imagine if I'd wandered off into the orchard, into the fields, mashed up a few strawberries, squashed an avocado or two, and dumped and massaged them into my scalp? Then rinsed with a cup of cold tea.
It would have been straight jacket time, I tell you. Or I'd be quickly associated to smoking the same green stuff the tractor driver was hourly participating in -- Back in those days, a bar of Lux or +Colgate soap did just fine even though it may have just been used to clean one of the mutts. I'm still showing a full crop of hair just in case you are wondering.
P.S. I bought the green one -- I think it is lime intoxicated with the fumes of an African swallow's fart or something or other. Not quite sure, but it seems to goad well with the bees out in the garden -- I'm a fair attraction.
Bring back them good, simple old days.
So here's an extract from TWO FEET about shopping -- hope you enjoy. Comments appreciated.
This was a good road. It had a few hills and a few potholes, but pedalling was easy especially on the way to the Store. I’d park the bike outside the Store where the hulking overhead diesel drum was positioned, and then walk across the dry patch of red earth where the chickens fed, and climb the few concrete steps onto the porch of the building. Here, a Cobbler and a tailor worked. The tailor had a milky eye and his left leg would furiously pump the plate on the floor to make the sewing machine rattle. He looked as though he was riding a bicycle to nowhere. The Cobbler, who wore a white shirt and a tie, had a tiny anvil and a mouthful of little black tacks that protruded from his lips like snakes’ tongues. Beside him were heaps of shoes that I thought would never cover a person’s feet or tread on a road again. But they did.
There is always a group of people gathered on the porch. A mother feeding her baby on her bosom, her head bent low over the infant to keep away the flies, an old man leaning on his cane peering from beneath the brim of his recently purchased hat, and another woman tying up her cash in a piece of cloth that she would thrust down her blouse for safe keeping.
The business of shopping was a muted, respected affair by customers in the Store. An aisle was approached with caution, almost in awe, bare feet scuffing on the concrete floor. Canned goods were held carefully in both hands, and the picture on the label was studied with the intensity of an art scholar. A bar of wrapped, Lux soap was sniffed and smiled at, and the bulky bag of Hullett’s refined, white sugar, stroked and prodded.
At the rear of the store, alongside gardening implements and paraffin lamps, shoes for men and women, made in Taiwan, beckoned. The shoes were never tried on for size but measured against the foot, the brightness of the shoe’s plastic alluring. The appearance of high heeled shoes would cause much stifled giggling.
The weighing of maize meal, sugar or flour by the Store’s owner was a solemn affair, the customer having ordered it, not by weight, but by what he or she could afford. As the grocer’s scale shifted on its fulcrum, so would the head of the customer, as if mentally trying to balance the brass contraption by telepathy. When the scale righted itself, the customer would do likewise with his or her head. Then the maize or flour would be poured into a paper bag and fastened with cello-tape. Whatever money the customer had was offered to the store owner as payment. It was accepted that the store owner would count out what was needed, and the balance be returned. A sticky sweet or two always concluded the transaction.
