Monday, November 27, 2006

Better living through chemists'

I've actually been working all weekend, and my mind is spinning, spinning, spinnning ahahahaha… However, I did manage to focus enough to head out to the chemists' (drug store) and pick up a few things. It was while queuing to pay that I spotted the latest products from Ambi-Pur, manufacturers of the finest room deoderizers and over-powering plug-in aroma generators to the discerning public.

I could tell they were new because they had "novinky" labelled on the box.

Ladeeez and Gentlemen, Ambi-Pur proudly presents:

His 'n' Hers car perfume.

Yep. One box for the manly men, distinguishable by its brown colour, and three photos of "manly" things: a black&white pic of a flexed bicep, grass and the open rooooaad. The woman's was pink (sigh) and featured pictures of lilies, lipsticks and a peach. Oh my. In a fiendish act of savvy marketing, the manufacturers have tapped into my long-repressed desire to dance gaily in a shower of lipgloss while clutching a huge bouquet of flowers to my chest and stomping on soft fruit.

Although the boxes were sealed to prevent reckless perfume abuse they also provided a handy-dandy scratch 'n' sniff patch at the top. After rummaging through the boxes to find stickers that were still intact, I can reveal that "His" smells of cheap aftershave with a hint of paper and "Hers" smells of cheap floral fabric softener. Somehow that doesn't make me feel any better. To say nothing of the complicated logistics problems created by having a gender-based car scents.

Fortunately, when I went to have a coffee to recover from the shock, I found the following personal advert at the back of the weekly English-language newspaper, The Prague Post which made me feel much better:

Rich, powerful, handsome yet modest businessman, 33, seeks much younger woman for relationship and good times. No time-wasters.

Edited to ad(d): Didn't have a copy of the advert with me when I wrote this, but thought I'd remembered enough. Except I went home, checked the paper and it's actually worse than I remembered. Here it is in full unabridged glory, but without the big box around it that caught my eye in the first place:

Rich, handsome, powerful yet modest urban professional seeks a woman to gaze into his eyes adoringly before and after. I am 33 y.o. from London looking for a younger Czech girl for a serioius relationship. No time-wasters

What can I say? If it's not a joke, then in this man's world, "irony" is a bit like "goldy" but made of iron.

3 comments:

The Richard said...

The 'rich powerful handsome' dude giveth and he taketh away. He is also totally lying about being 33. What is 'much younger'? 17? This is kind of human to be avoided at all costs.

The Richard said...

... and, by freakish coincidence, you ever come across him, unleash that Ambi-Pur!

EvilAuntiePeril said...

rpc, I'm betting that he actually uses aftershave that smells like Ambi-Pur in enormous gag-reflex activating quantities.

Sadly, there are not a few of his ilk out here, as a quick trip to any of the dives around Wenceslas square will show. x