Thursday, November 06, 2008

You Asked For It, You Got It: Not Toyota

Ok, well Wendi made the mistake of asking what I do with chapstick, what could I possibly do that makes me happy? Then she went and tried to renig, something about how she didn't really want to know or something, but I know the truth. She is DYING to hear the sordid details. I've been living with this secret for a long time now, and it's time to get it off my chest. I was begging for help, you see, when I listed chapstick on my list of Happy Things. I was hoping someone would go on ahead and call me out on that one, so I wouldn't have to live in secret shame any longer. Well, thank you Wendi Adams, for liberating my madness, as it were.

You really wanna know? I mean REALLY? If not, click away from the page now. Before it's too late. The image of the following words will forever be burned upon your subconscious mind and you'll dream nightmarey dreams in which giant chapstick tubes chase and devour you for the rest of your days on this earth.

What do I do with chapstick that makes me so damn happy? I put it on my lips.

SHOCKED SILENCE AND GASPING FOR BREATH AND RETCHING OF BREAKFASTS!

Yeah, ok. Maybe it's not THAT big of a deal since, you know, it was made for lips and stuff. But honestly, I LOVE it. I HEART it. I would DIE without it. I have...let's see...two chapsticks in my living room, one by my bed (for midnight chapstick emergencies), two in my bathroom, two in my purse, one in my car, and one by my desk at work. OH and one in my glove box (so that's two in my car). And this, my friends, is me running dangerously low on chapstick.

Now, when I say "chapstick", I do not in fact mean "Chapstick". I'm from Arkansas guys, I say "Coke" when referring to any carbonated beverage, I say "Kleenex" when I really mean tissue produced for the picking and wiping of noses, I say "hooker" when I mean female humans. So when I say chapstick, I mean sticks of goo made for smearing across lips to provide moisture retention and miniscule UV ray protection. I do not discriminate by branding. WITH ONE EXCEPTION: Carmex.

Now you Carmex executives, don't get all in a tizzy and start slapping slander suits on me and whatnot. I'm sure that in the hands of your average consumer, Carmex is a perfectly delightful product which provides soothing relief to lips across the globe. In the hands of an addict, such as myself, Carmex was like a loaded gun. A loaded gun full of pain and suffering and knashing of teeth. They claim it is not addictive, that no ingredients in their product causes addiction, and that the FDA approves their ingredients and all that. See here for info. But I tell you man, once I started down that path, I was hooked like a hooky hooker with hooks in her. I couldn't go an hour without applying it, or my lips would chafe and crack and, yes, even bleed.

I started using Carmex as a kid (at the recommendation of my pediatrician, no less) for the purpose of assisting my poor mouth in recovering from cold sores. I'm like some kind of cold sore breeding ground. I get them all the fucking time. As in, I just had one last week and it finally went away and this morning I woke up with two more. I get them when I'm stressed, ovulating (or apparently when I'm undergoing the endless D&C period), sunburned, sick, or when the weather changes drascically in any direction. I'm pretty sure I can blame my dad for this, who also gets them frequently, so don't start in with the STD lecture or anything. Mouth herpes? Check. Genital herpes? HOLY CHRIST NO! (Although, is it supposed to burn when you pee?)

For those of you who suffer from cold sores, you know they are hard to prevent, impossible to cure, and take forever to get rid of. I seem to have the breeding variety as well. Once, I had so many on both my lips that I looked like Bubba from Forrest Gump. I swear to god, no joke. I went to the hospital that time. I took L-lysine supplements as a kid. I've taken Rx meds for genital herpes to prevent them. I've tried all the topical products known to man. Nothing stops them, and honestly nothing gets rid of them any faster. In recent years, I've been poking them with a sterilized pin when they get all full of stuff, and keeping rubbing alcohol on them with a cotton ball to dry them out. At least then they are not quite as smack-you-in-the-face noticible. Everything else is expensive and a total waste of money.

Anyhow, Carmex felt great on my ailing lips...but then I had to use it all of the time.. I couldn't switch from Carmex to regular chapstick without suffering. Eventually, I weaned myself off the hard stuff. Chapstick is like my methodone folks. Clearly I still have addiction issues. I have to have the stuff coating my lips at all times of the day or they hurt. I know I should cut back, I have a family to think about. No, wait. No family. But still, for my very own good. I need to stop the madness.

I think this is what Metallica meant when they wrote Master of Puppets.

13 comments:

  1. I'm seriously addicted to Burt's Bees. That shit is da bomb.

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  2. We need to get you on a twelve step program for that. Well, with chapstick it's probably more like 2 and three quarters steps, but still.

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  3. I was hooked on carmex too.I am now proudly on vaseline. You cant get hooked to that right?

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  4. On the road of the addict...it is always night.

    And those damn things do hurt and they can be a menace...to everyone involved.
    Not to mention: Carmex tastes like hammered shit. How could you stand to have that on your lips? Who would want to kiss gob of pungent goop?

    Also...it doesn't really "Burn" when I pee...I mean, Fire shoots out of my penis. You know?

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  5. Carmex is awesome. I use it all the time.

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  6. Oh I am glad I am not the only one that gets those stupid things. I blame my own mother for them. Sounds like I get them just as often as you do and for the same reasons. I however use deodorant to stop mine. Totally gross I know, but we find our own ways to stop them.

    Oh I am a new reader since yesterday, I am hooked...and I love the word fuck too!

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  7. Like Nikki I'm a Burts Bees girl. If I can just get my son to stop trying to eat it.

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  8. I too have been a Carmex addict several times in my life. I know what you have been through. It's so weird that I'm reading this though because my husband's brother just called to say that their cousin was supposedly kicked out if his parents' house, staying with them and his wife found empty heroine bags and needles in his ripped open bag. This is horrible because nobody can really deal with that (we all have small kids) and he needs help. SO now there is phone calls going to the cousin's sister and probably to the parents soon because someone needs to either put him up or come up with some money to get him some help in a clinic. Sigh. So much for my peaceful Friday night watching movies with my husband. Bleh.

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  9. Oh yeah, by the way....Abreva is the best (expensive) little tiny medication tube ever. It seriously works in 2 or 3 days at the onset and bam it's gone. I hate cold sores. I feel like an ass because I gave my daughter Herpes (Simplex) when I kissed on her last year while I had a cold sore. That sounds awful doesn't it? I GAVE MY DAUGHTER HERPES! CRY!

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  10. You are hilarious.
    Thanks for clearing the Chapstick issue up for me--I've been dying to find out the real truth about it and I will now sleep well tonight.
    And I like Carmex, but I don't like having to use my finger. (That's what she said.)
    --Wendi

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  11. Yes, you're right. There is no question that we must be related!

    I get cold sores too but usually just once a year although not yet this year (I'm a knockin', don't worry).

    Anyhow, I didn't even realize until about 2 years ago that they were cold sores because it was the first time it actually LOOKED like one. A scabby dabby gooey and pustulumptious mess plus a matching and blinking neon sign advertising the show.

    I frickin' hate those things. And I know now who gave it to me because I remember asking him about the sore on his mouth and he gave me some cock and bull story which I was too young not to know was a big fat rat-assed lie. He's going to hell.

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  12. After reading this I don't feel so bad any more. I am a lipgloss addict, My lips have to shiny at all times, I continuosly reapply lipgloss through out the day, even at work, and even when I get off at MIDNIGHT, I reapply some more cause they just aren't shiny enough for the ride home.
    The saddest part is I have to put some on when I get out the tub as I'm getting ready for BED. I hate cheap lipgloss though, the 99 cent lipgloss is terrible. I just found some really great gloss at Old Navy! I still kinda feel really weird after admitting this though.

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  13. Suzie, you can totally get hooked on Vaseline. Just not the way you're using it.

    I found my mom's carmex when I was a toddler and ate the entire tub. But I also ate bugs, paint chips, and every household cleaner I came across, so my tastes were not refined enough to guarantee survival yet at that point. I seem to have learned since then to limit the dangerous intake to alcohol and cigarettes. Now I keep some Carmex around even though I don't get cold sores because it works on chapped lips so well in winter. But I no longer eat it.

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You.Yeah, you. Speak the fuck up.