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mallorys_cameraYoung Hercules back from his East Coast labors. The cheap Jet Blue flights disembark in Oakland so I had to drive up to the Bay Area to collect him. I had some fantasy that I would drive up there early, spend an hour or so wandering the streets of Berkeley, past the old, slumbering, genteel brown-shingled houses which in my day – don’t think how long ago that was – were dilapidated student shares but which are now million dollar single family units. The sun would be shining, the astromeria would be in bloom.
Instead I got caught in killer freeway traffic. Was supposed to meet Eleanor in Castro Valley for dinner. So I decided to take my excursion miles at the Great Mall of Milpitas.
Mistake. And yet not mistake…
The Great Mall may be the most depressing place in the world where they don’t actually apply electrodes to people’s genitals. Vast empty tunnels lined with moth-eaten retail citadels – you can see the Legionaries’ Disease motes floating in the bleak fluorescent lighting. And then there are the mall rats, a suburban Pol Pot army – they would kill you for a 20% markdown on a Sean John exercise jacket.
I saw it out of the corner of my eye. One of those shabby perfume emporiums.
I’m always on the lookout for perfume emporiums.
In all the world of heavily marketed beauty products, there’s only one that I’ve ever found essential. It’s a perfume called Loulou. I’m told in France where the scent originated, it’s considered a kind of cheap cologne, sold bulk rate in the Gallic equivalent of Long’s or Right Aid. Very declassé. But this particular perfume interacts with my body chemistry in a very seductive way – it smells good on me, it smells right on me. Loulou used to be very easy to find in American stores but there’s been a drought for the past ten years or so. When I run out, I have to scout up bottles on Ebay where they generally set me back $70 or so.
I walked into the perfume emporium. The carpet was peeling back from the walls, exposing rotting linoleum. The clerk looked as though she had last seen sunlight some time during the Reagan administration.
But the walls were lined with boxed flasks. Feverishly, I began searching.
"What are you looking for?" the clerk asked.
"Oh, you don’t have it," I said.
"No, really," she insisted.
"Well, if you must know, it’s a French perfume by Cacharel called Loulou. But I know you don’t have it –"
"Oh, but we do," said the clerk. And she walked to the corner of the store, stooped down to the lowest shelf and picked up a box.
Loulou!
Cheap too. Only $45 a bottle.
I bought one. I may have to drive up later this week to buy out the rest of her stock.
I’m sniffing myself as I type – with sleek, deeply sensual pleasure.
Instead I got caught in killer freeway traffic. Was supposed to meet Eleanor in Castro Valley for dinner. So I decided to take my excursion miles at the Great Mall of Milpitas.
Mistake. And yet not mistake…
The Great Mall may be the most depressing place in the world where they don’t actually apply electrodes to people’s genitals. Vast empty tunnels lined with moth-eaten retail citadels – you can see the Legionaries’ Disease motes floating in the bleak fluorescent lighting. And then there are the mall rats, a suburban Pol Pot army – they would kill you for a 20% markdown on a Sean John exercise jacket.
I saw it out of the corner of my eye. One of those shabby perfume emporiums.
I’m always on the lookout for perfume emporiums.
In all the world of heavily marketed beauty products, there’s only one that I’ve ever found essential. It’s a perfume called Loulou. I’m told in France where the scent originated, it’s considered a kind of cheap cologne, sold bulk rate in the Gallic equivalent of Long’s or Right Aid. Very declassé. But this particular perfume interacts with my body chemistry in a very seductive way – it smells good on me, it smells right on me. Loulou used to be very easy to find in American stores but there’s been a drought for the past ten years or so. When I run out, I have to scout up bottles on Ebay where they generally set me back $70 or so.
I walked into the perfume emporium. The carpet was peeling back from the walls, exposing rotting linoleum. The clerk looked as though she had last seen sunlight some time during the Reagan administration.
But the walls were lined with boxed flasks. Feverishly, I began searching.
"What are you looking for?" the clerk asked.
"Oh, you don’t have it," I said.
"No, really," she insisted.
"Well, if you must know, it’s a French perfume by Cacharel called Loulou. But I know you don’t have it –"
"Oh, but we do," said the clerk. And she walked to the corner of the store, stooped down to the lowest shelf and picked up a box.
Loulou!
Cheap too. Only $45 a bottle.
I bought one. I may have to drive up later this week to buy out the rest of her stock.
I’m sniffing myself as I type – with sleek, deeply sensual pleasure.
