In which I list the names of the drug stores that I visited

I’ll warn you right now; this is going to be a boring one. It’s going to be one of those warbling, pointless entries where I talk about my favorite boring things, like shampoo brands and deodorant scents. I’m a creepily domestic person and I know it well.

So here’s the dealio: After an evening spent grubbing on enchiladas and house hunting, my live-in person and I went off to run a few errands. It was a fairly boring affair; we needed conditioner and deodorant and I was willing to spring for some face wash and a brand-spankin’ new loofah if the price was right. Despite our scant list and our pedestrian (oh, so pedestrian) taste in beauty products, we went to 3 different stores before we were able to find what we were looking for. I’m disappointed in Target, CVS, and Walgreens today.

As it turns out, both my husband’s deodorant and my conditioner are being phased out. Phased out! Replaced under a guise of “new and improved,” as though the science of hair-care and smell-reduction weren’t already fully formed sciences. I was finally able to find my conditioner at Wal-Mart in a new snazzy (aerodynamic?) bottle, but my best pal had to choose a new brand of deodorant. I won’t succumb to the terrible temptation and point out that having to pick a new deodorant is the pits.

Puns aside, I really sympathize with my main squeeze; I’ve been using the same brand of deodorant for years. (Hint: It’s the same brand as my shampoo and conditioner. As a smell-impaired person I like to think that means all of my fragrances “match.”) And getting a new brand is stressful. In fact, I might just come out and say that deodorant itself is pretty g.d. stressful.

I remember when I first started wearing deodorant, around the time that I turned 12. From the beginning it was a fetching symbol for the murky underside of the adolescence that I was trying like the dickens to suppress; I kept my stick in my bedroom and put it on before I changed from my pjs. (Disclaimer: I swear I’m not alone in this freakish preoccupation...When I was a teenager I had a friend who stored hers in a decorative wooden box to conceal it from her brothers.)

After a few years I got over this fear and started leaving my stick in the bathroom cabinet and putting it on after I changed, trading those awkward side-of-shirt deodorant smears for small white flecks on the collar of my crewnecks. I started to take a little pride in my deodorant and the glandular regularity that necessitated it. I consider myself an avid and enthusiastic deodorant user now, but that doesn’t mean I want to go switching brands willy-nilly. When I finally switched from the brightly colored Teen Spirit sticks to my current staunchly white and powdery stick the transition was difficult and I have no care to repeat the process.

There were benefits, though. For one, I no longer smell like a pack of sweaty Skittles.