A Hilarious Time Shopping for Lip Balm

I had such a hilarious time at Rite-Aid yesterday, shopping for lip balm. First off, Aaron thought we should just go to Ralph's, as it was closer, but I insisted on Rite-Aid. "I don't want the stuff they sell in the check-out line," I told him. "I want Burt's Bees!"

Once we got to Rite-Aid, I tracked down a clerk who thought I wanted something to make my lips "puffy." I suspected she was unfamiliar with the word "balm," so I told her I was looking for Chapstick. Aisle 15, she suggested.

Aaron did a little dance to indicate he was so happy we were at Rite-Aid.

Burt's Bees came in two varieties--peppermint and honey. I figured we needed to experience both.

But the adventure continued. "As long as we're here," I said, "let's really see this place, OK, son?" I told him that I used to spend a lot of time at Rite-Aid when he was a kid, shopping for stocking stuffers at Christmastime and for strange Easter candies. On that note, we took a gander down the Easter aisle. I spotted a chocolate bunny that was not standing upright in its box, making it look a bit depressed. This bunny's decline set us laughing, as did the Hubba Bubba chicken that, as Aaron put it, "poops plastic eggs."

Next up was the outdoor-entertaining aisle. "Here's my tip for you, son. If you're strapped for cash and you need a place to sleep, you can buy a lawn-chair cushion for under 30 bucks instead of wasting hundreds on a bed."

"Or you could just buy a whole bunch of them and tack them to your bedroom walls," he suggested. "A padded room."

I told him he was being silly.

After a few giggles about the fake-palm branch cabana umbrellas, we paid for the lip balm and exited the store. Before we even got to the car, I had ripped open the peppermint and applied it to my lips. Aaron did the same.

"Ooooh, it's so...."

"Tingly?"

"Yes, yes, it's tingly! Oh, that's so nice!" I squealed. "But what's going to happen if I put the honey variety on top of it?"

The honey scent smelled like real honey. I was SO glad we hadn't gone to Ralph's to get Chapstick! I was giggling with delight. "Who needs drugs?" I wondered.

"You sure don't," Aaron agreed.

And so we continued to laugh and carry on, all the way home.

This morning, before he went to work and I went to see my mom for Easter brunch, I was smiling and beaming once again, remembering our Rite-Aid silliness. "Isn't it too bad," I said, "that so few people in this country could have had the fun that we did at Rite-Aid? Isn't it a shame how lacking in simple fun so many people are?"

"Yes, it's really too bad."

In all fairness, I spent a great deal of my life as a sad sack, letting loneliness, ostracization, health problems, rejection, and all the other ills of living get me down. And then I found silliness!

Although it sure helps to have a partner in silliness, it's not absolutely necessary. Often I catch myself laughing when I am alone, laughing at something silly I just did.

So I encourage all to give silliness a try. You won't regret it. And maybe it will mean you won't have to use drugs to get you to where silliness can take you for free.

Playful. Intelligent. Sexy. Strange

Playful.
Intelligent.
Sexy.
Strange.

These are the characteristics I seek in a man. Sure, it would also be great if he had a job, didn't need a green card, drove stick, and could do magic tricks. But I'm willing to compromise a bit.

Do you know that I have been looking all my life for such a man and have yet to find him? I have met men who are intelligent, though they are often single-subject guys, not Renaissance men. We have great conversations about theology or psychology or science or philosophy, but where is the man who knows something about all of these and a dozen other areas too?

You see, intelligence isn't just about having an intellectual buddy. It's about finding a man who can use his intelligence to make nuanced conceits, ingenious feats of language that can be simultaneously interpreted as benign, polite conversation and as snares of seduction. Think John Malkovich and Glenn Close in "Dangerous Liaisons," though not quite so dark. I want to create a private, intimate world of metaphor with this man. So delicious, especially in the build-up to the first touch, the first kiss.

Sexy in the way he looks at me, the way he adjusts his rearview mirror, the way he slowly inches a butter knife across the table toward me in a crowded restaurant. A man who is confident but not stuck on himself.

Strange, well, of course. I don't want the average joe, but someone who is unconventional, who gives hints that he will bring that strangeness to the bedroom.

And playful, yes, yes, yes! I would love to have someone to play with! To be silly with! To role-play, oh, how I love role-playing! And yet in my entire life I've only found two men who were capable of taking on other personalities ahd histories. Think of all the fantastic possibilities: teacher-student, car owner-mechanic, diner-waitress/waiter, doctor-patient, homeowner-handyman, foreign tourist-native speaker, minister-church secretary.

And playful outside of sex too. Someone who would find fun at every turn, whether in the produce department or the ER, whether raking leaves or changing the oil.

In my 50 years on this planet, I have yet to meet a man who is over 25 and embodies all four of these characteristics. (Johnny Depp seems as if he does, but we have yet to meet.) Actually, very few have embodied even two.

I can only come up with four men who are over 25 and are playful. What a sorry state this country is in. Everyone is so dreadfully serious.