My maternal grandmother had an eccentricity. She would buy (or be gifted) good stuff, like new crockery for the house or expensive toys for us, and then keep it in a locked ‘showcase’, neither using the crockery, nor allowing us to play with the toys. She thought this will ‘spoil’ the newness of the things she so carefully saved for and acquired. These ‘showcased’ things would eventually deteriorate and rot on the shelf, or would break or crack while being cleaned, and would then need to be thrown away. It was such a waste, I used to think. I’d never do that. And I didn’t. Most of my life, I’ve lived by the dictum my father drilled into all of us, ‘People are not for using. But things certainly are.’ I think I was doing rather well on that front.
Until this morning in the shower, when after my bath, I reached for my regular deodorant (which is literally any random deo my wife, now ex, had got me some months before we separated) to realise that it had finished and I needed to open a new one.
I turned around to the shelf where I keep a stock of these (once again, a collection of random stuff bought by the women who ruled my life at the time it was bought) and did not see a deo (eventually, I found not one but five of them, as you can see in the picture). I panicked (kind of). What would I use today? But there were other bottles of perfume right there, filled with exotic and beautiful scents and fragrances from around the world, which I could spray. Why didn’t it even strike me as something I could do? Probably my grandmother’s genes. Probably habit. I mean, an actual perfume? Every day? Are you nuts!?
I realised that these bottles, six of which I have come to possess, have been on my shelf for many years, the oldest one bought in 2001, a good 21 years ago! Why then do I not use these and prefer to use cheap deos? I don’t know. But it did strike me that when I die, my daughter would wonder why I hoarded perfumes and eaus de toilette and colognes, and used only deodorants every day. That’s stupid. I can just imagine her shaking her head as she gathers these in her arms and throws them into a box for her to give away to her male friend, who’d probably then keep them until his descendants do the same. And on and on. What, I thought, is the bloody point of it all?
Ditto, the other habit I have picked up from my grandmom where I eat the stale food first and leave the fresh one for later, which is basically, the next day when it becomes stale! I use up the older shirts first until they fray at the edges and then reach for the new one, which has now started to stain at the crease because it was never unfolded for a couple of years while I used up the older one. I eat the sides of the French toast first before I can get to the middle, by which time it is no longer nice & hot. I finish the veggies on my plate before I reach the chicken (which I absolutely love), by which time my stomach is full. What am I achieving keeping myself from enjoying the small gifts of life all the time? I end up with the worst of both worlds.
This has to change. I am literally living my life eating stale food, wearing old clothes, and spraying cheap deo on myself when I have fresh food on the table, new shirts in the wardrobe, and half a dozen beautiful bottles of perfume on my shower shelf. What. An. Idiot.
So, here’s a resolution I made today in the shower: I’m going to use up that perfume. All of it. Then, buy a new bottle (this time, perhaps by myself). And then, use that up. And so on. I am never buying a cheap deodorant again. My advice is you should too. Life’s too short not to use good perfume every day.
P.S: I don’t understand perfumes. I have a terrible sense of smell. And I’ve never bought any of these bottles myself. But I understand that they’re better off sprayed onto my body than rotting on my shelf. So that’s how it’s gonna be from today.
