You're Not Gonna Believe Val's Buffoonery This Time

Okay. You probably ARE going to believe Val's buffoonery this time. Val is a well-known buffoonist. Usually inadvertently, though. She's not a professional.

I suppose the real joke is on me. But perhaps you'll get a laugh at my expense.

Winter is hard on my hands. The dry air, and hand-washing dishes, and hand-washing my hands if I'm out somewhere, make for scrapes and cracks on my fingers. I know the very best way to remedy this affliction is to coat my hands with Vaseline, shove them into a pair of socks, and sleep while my skin gets a moisturizing treatment.

I forget about that, though, when I head to bed at 3:00 a.m.

This problem is even worse if I'm on a trip, or at a casino. I guess it's an excess of handwashing and paper-towel or blazing-air drying. I have several tubes of lotion that I keep in A-Cad's glove box, my gambling purse, in my suitcase, and in a travel bag that sits on the end table in the living room. I also have a big bottle of lotion sitting on the counter by the bathroom sink, which I apply as I head out after my shower. It doesn't work all that great, but it IS good for rubbing on a raw nose if you blow it excessively during a cold.

A week or two ago, I rummaged through my travel bag, and found a spare tube of lotion that I carried down to my dark basement lair. Over the past couple of days, I've been using it when my hands feel especially cracky.

I love that lotion! When I first put it on, I got a whiff of the scent, and it was bittersweet. My mood, actually, because the scent was very sweet indeed. It reminded me of our first trips to Oklahoma, to take The Pony to an orientation week, and then to move him out to Norman and leave him at OU. So the smell brought back good times, of us being all excited about The Pony's future and next step in life, and sad times, when we left him behind and started back. But overall, it's a good memory that my tube of lotion elicits.

Last night I applied some lotion for the second time that day. I'd washed dishes three times, after making Chex Mix, and a pot of soup. While that lotion usually stays on a long time, making my hands feel silky, even it cannot hold up to three sinks of Dawn dishwashing liquid.

After rubbing in a thin line of lotion, as I was snapping the lid closed, I took a good look an my magical moisturizer.

WTF?

Looks like I have been, for the past year-and-a-half, singing the praises of, and rubbing my hands with...A HAIR PRODUCT! "Deep Recovery Hair Mask," it says! Professional! "Developed to treat extra dry or over-processed hair!"

Sometimes I can't believe my own stupidity! I swear, my knuckles are not hairy! This stuff works great on skin. A couple times a day. Even though it's "the concentrated weekly treatment" for dry and over-processed hair!

Not even gonna lie. I plan to continue using it on my hands.