One of the clearest memories I have of my Grandparents' house is of their bathroom. I used to could spend hours in there, just plain staring at all their old-people stuff. Stuff I wasn't familiar with at all. (What the heck is feminine powder? Dentures? They also had a torture device hanging by the toothbrushes. Now I think it might have been a WaterPik. At the time, I was sure it was used on eyeballs.)
I remember Oil of Olay. I remember the smell - sweet and soft. I remember the soft most of all, soft as my Grandma's skin. I remember the little dabs she used to put on her finger, the little circles she'd use to rub it in. I remember sitting on the closed toilet-seat lid and swinging my feet, watching in awe as she went through her morning routine. All the while waiting very impatiently to be like her, sophisticated. Grown-up. Smelling nice. Oil of Olay.
They changed the name on me just as I was getting old enough to consider a moisturizer, and I can't make myself loyal to them. It's the same stuff, and yet it's not. They over-marketed themselves, in my mind. Now, instead of thinking about a giant glorious empire where you're Cleopatra (the version I had in my head before Rome the show. The one where she's not a philthy opium-addicted slut with man-hair. Not that she's not gorgeous) with servants running your expensive baths and pouring all sorts of oils and milks and expensive stuff into the bath for you. Come to think of it, there's a scene like that I remember from a movie my Grandma had at her house for us kids, too, now that I think about it.. and an old man saying, "Like sands through the* hour glass, these are the Oils of Olay." Well, maybe he wouldn't say that exactly, but it would be something in that voice.
And now they've gone and ruin it by taking out the "Oil of", and leaving me with Olay, olay. And who wants to schmear that all over their face?
*HFB helped me out with that one.
3 comments:
a-HEM. It's this: "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives."
Put down the books and turn on the TV once in a while, wouldya? Smart people, sheesh.
yes, yes, happyfunball, that was what i was falling all over myself trying to click on the comment link to say.
mary, joseph and the baby jesus!
" these are the oils of olay ?"
my grandma used some estee lauder perfume, they probably still make it. but it ain't no sands through the hourglass...
Come on, people, the wording was a little off (at first, then I fixed it), but did you actually click on the link? I MEANT TO DO THAT. I THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY.
Sheesh. No faith in me at all.
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