The Curmudgeonly Professor Continues His Tour of WalMart and Costco: part 6, maybe

Class, we have now come to that inspirational moment of setting foot in that monument of free enterprise, that modern paragon of selling stuff cheap that's made in 350 foreign lands.  The first place we head is to the right for the bathroom and cosmetics stuff.  My immediate task is to find some new body wash to replace the industrial strength drain cleaner I have been using.  My previous body wash looks like dense anti-freeze and could probably be used to delouse dogs.  I settle on a cheap bottle of Suave naturals labeled "Cucumber Melon:  rejuvenating body wash.  Infused with cucumber+ melon extracts," and a promise that it has the fragrance appeal of Bath and Body Works.  I make an instant decision.  I would rather smell like cucumbers and melons than anti-freeze and industrial drain cleaner.  The back of the container assures me that it "cleanses and moisturizes as well as more expensive brands."  Besides, this particular product was the cheapest on the shelf.

I went home, got ready to take a shower, and then read the ingredients, expecting that I would be bathing in cucumber and melon juice plus a little soap, but no, no, here's what I was lathering on myself:  water, ammonium lauryl sulfate, ammonium laureth sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine, glycerin, cucumis salivus (cucumber) fruit extract, cucumis melo (melon) fruit extract, tocopheryl acetate (vitamin E Acetate), fragrance, polyquatermium-10, cocamide MEA, PEG-5 cocamide, propylene glycol, ammonium chyloride, tetrasodium EDTA, methylchloroisothiazolinone, methylisothiazolinone, etidonic acid blue 1 (Cl 42090), Yellow 5 (Cl19140).

No fooling?  I had two years of college chemistry to get my degree in agriculture but that was enough to convince me to become an economist and work on calculators and yellow legal pads rather than dump chemicals together to see what would happen.  I defy any readers to proofread the spelling in the foregoing list.  An especially nice touch is to give the scientific latin names for cukes and melons, giving it a bit more scientific hoity-toity credibility.  Who figured out how to dump all this aggregation of chemicals together and call it cucumber melon body wash?  How do we know all this stuff is safe?  How do we know that this won't cause me to look like a melon or a cucumber?

And what happened to Grandma's Lye Soap?  ("Do you remember, grandma's lye soap, good for everything in the home; do you remember grandma's lye soap, it wouldn't suds, it wouldn't foam, so let's sing out for grandma's lye soap, etc.). I remember that song because it was a snowy and very icy day when we drove from Laramie to Salt Lake City in December 1952 right after I took my last final exam to get married to the sweet little blonde I had been dating for three years.  And we sang that stupid song all the way over there.  And I couldn't get it out of my mind while I was supposed to be reciting my eternal wedding vows.  Now, all my life, whenever I go to a wedding, I find myself singing quietly "Do you remember grandma's lye soap?"  Only on that December day 56 years ago neither of us knew how long a lifetime would be, let alone how long eternity would be.  Those shocks came later.  But maybe we should still be making soap in a big black kettle with hog fat and lye in the back yard and forget this cucumber-melon stuff.  

Come to think of it, it's a good thing I wrote this previous paragraph, because I tend to forget my wedding anniversary.  I know about what time of year it is, but I can't remember for certain whether it was the 18th or 22nd, and I am not kidding.  One year I got a dust-buster at the last moment, which, needless to say did not endear me to my wife.  Another year she mentioned "happy anniversary" in mid-morning to which I quietly told myself "hells-bells" and took off quietly for the store to redeem myself.

Well class, we have used up our valuable time today, but I have taught you several valuable lessons.  Number 1, get an advanced degree in chemistry so you can read the ingredients to all the foods and body products you use so you know what will make you fat, what will make you skinny, what will make hair sprout in bald spots, and what will smell like drain cleaner.  Number 2, make an effort to remember your wedding anniversary should you already be or plan to get married, and do not buy her a dust-buster.

Next class we move on to the deodorant aisle, so read the next 15 chapters and we will start class with a quiz over everything I haven't gotten around to discussing in class but which you are held 100% responsible for, I kid you not.  Class dismissed.