The holidays are here and for most of you that means loading up the car and driving to the mall — where you will proceed to mindlessly buy lotion for every woman on your gift list.
I have two words for this "all lotion all the time" gift mentality that seems to have cropped up in the past couple of years: "Y'all, stop."
I am sure I'm not alone (although after sampling that kumquat-and-mince lotion somebody gave me last year, it's a wonder I'm not, on account of "Phew-y!") when I say that the Estrogen Nation has enough lotion. More than enough. I personally have enough gift lotion to lubricate the entire membership of the Red Hat Society.
And I mean that in the nicest way possible.
Lotion is the new candle. In fact, if someone could figure out a way to either set lotion on fire OR rub candles all over your body, it would be the perfect gift.
Except that it's not.
I know that those of you out there who take things Very Seriously Indeed are bristling at the suggestion that everyone doesn't love a big, honkin' assorted gift pack of lotions that smells like brownies, spice cookies and rum toddies.
Trust me; we'd much rather have the real thing.
The sad, and slighty greasy, truth is that every woman I know has at least one bathroom cabinet overflowing with enough lotions in tubes, tubs and bottles to last approximately 36 years.
Of course some lotions are nice to receive: the kinds that are sealed up really well so you can easily get the cash for them when you take `em back to the store rank way up there at the tippy top of the list. OK, they're the only kind on the list.
The thing is: Most women know what kind of lotion they like and they buy it for themselves. Unless you know that, too, there's a good chance that your Extract of Guava Seed & Strep or whatever isn't ever going to be used.
The nation's obsession with Lotion As the Easy Gift has managed to accomplish the impossible, at least in my mind: It's starting to make the beef stick look good.
The lotion notion is just one more reason I hope that I'll never have to live in the nursing home because that's when the lotion-giving really ramps up. At the home, they have to rent those portable storage "pods" to hold all the lotions AND slipper socks given to the women residents over the years by this or that well-intentioned doofus cousin who hasn't visited in person since the Carter administration.
Like I said, "Y'all stop."
