Odd Products

Yes, it really is a purple-and-blue cake

Honey, where did you put the glitter-duck Xmas decorations?

Prevents the neighbours' kids using your pool, I guess

(This was sold in a sports equipment shop)

Duped

Two days ago, I went to CVS, a nationwide chain of chemists (aka "pharmacies"), to get a very specific brand of cream: Aveeno. When I got there, I found what looked like two different types of Aveeno on the shelves, so I compared them and finally decided on one. Back home, my wife asked me, "Why did you decide to get the CVS-brand cream instead?"

I hadn't.

Returning to CVS to get the cream I had really wanted, I realised why I had bought the wrong one: I had fallen prey to the kind of consumer switcheroo that retail chains love to provoke. However, rather than the typical tactic of merely placing store-brand products in more prominent positions than third-party ones, CVS has taken a far more insidious approach: it systematically mimics the colour scheme and packaging of the most popular name-brand goods and then places its own products directly next to these.

As a result, the tube of CVS cream was in a white tube exactly the same size and with exactly the same shade of green writing as my Aveeno. Further along the shelf was a larger bottle of Aveeno with a dark green lid. The CVS-brand bottle of the identical size also had a dark green lid - and stood adjacent to the Aveeno bottle. Looking down, I noticed a different brand of moisturising cream with a blue-and-gold logo and a distinctive gold pump-dispenser. The CVS-brand cream right next to it was also blue-and-gold with a gold pump-dispenser.

Amazed at my discovery, I took a step back, and as I scanned along the entire aisle, I noticed that all the products on sale were deliberately arranged in pairs - each one a "real" product and its corresponding CVS "fake", like those blatantly forged Chinese "Nicke" T-shirts and "Adidash" trainers. And whatever packaging the brand-name products came in, whether bottle, tube or jar, CVS had created and stocked a virtually identical equivalent.

Look at the picture below, which I felt forced to take in order to document my flabbergastedness:


As you can see, the only visual difference between the brand-name products and the CVS ones is that the latter have a circular CVS logo - although this is always in the relevant colour scheme of the imitated brand-name product.

Americans justifiably always pride themselves in having a choice. This is not about choice, but a deliberate attempt to fool customers. Shame on you, CVS!

Running the Trails

First light. Leaving the car park, the noise and the fumes behind, I plunge into the trees, the mellow vibes of Incubus Radio setting the pace, the autumn foliage above bathing the world in a warm orange glow and dappling the leaf-strewn path at my feet. Pitter, patter.

Dew-drenched grass licks hungrily at my ankles, and it is good. Mist hangs suspended over a pond like a snug, grey blanket. The path weaves left, then right, then right again, gradually climbing.

A sip of my water bottle and I run on, penetrating deeper, deeper into the forest – my forest, at least for now. A startled deer looks up, further on a chipmunk, and another and yet a third, its striped back waving to me as it darts away. "I really shouldn't," it seems to chirp, "but Hi!"

Higher I climb, ever higher, sharp right and then left, while the sun, radiant, golden, climbs with me. I pass a moss- and reed-filled pond half-lit, half still in slumber, and that also is good. Up ahead an intersection. Which way? The longer way!

My steps are light, and I too dart over the rocks, the stones and the roots, right, right again, now left. Warmed like a snake on a path in the morning, I shed my T-shirt and immediately increase my pace, topless and free, a wild animal finally released from its shackles. I am one with the forest; this is what I do.

The path slopes steeply down and, lifting my arms to soar, I thrill at the sensation of falling, falling. On I go, past a small lake. Pitter, patter. The sun is high now, and the lily pads on the water reflect its rays like myriad silver mirrors.

Another sip from my bottle and I run on, barely touching the ground, right turn, hairpin left, then down again. And suddenly – almost too soon – I emerge from my leafy womb, out into the brilliant light. Now I too am radiant, vibrant, tingling with energy. I look down at my watch: has it really been two-and-a-half hours?

To be honest, who needs drugs, alcohol, caffeine? I ran the trails this morning, and in just a few hours I became the sun.

Garages

The American garage (pronounced "ga-RAHj") is an endless source of fascination for me.

Typically double - at least in my neck of Suburbia - and frequently triple or even quadruple, garages are the most prominent feature of the front of many houses (ours included); brash, bold, unmistakable evidence of the importance of the automobile in American life. And since they are attached directly to the house and often even heated, they could be considered a bedroom for the family's four-wheeled "relatives".

More often than not, garages are also the principal entrance to a house. We, for instance, nearly never use the front door except to receive and jettison guests. And since there's a door directly linking the back of the garage with the house, it's a good place to take off dirty shoes or get to/from your car without getting wet.

Best of all, garages offer plenty of storage space. Due to the way houses are built here, there isn't a loft, attic or cellar to put seasonal equipment and other temporarily superfluous items in. That leaves only one option: the garage. And boy, do people take advantage of this.

Now I don't know what you put in your attic, but I'm pretty sure that, like me, you use it to store all the things you don't need every day, but are reluctant to throw away: cartons of books, school trophies and memorabilia, every picture your children ever drew, odd ski poles, clothes, toys and stacks of your grandmother's World War II-era magazines.

Given that Americans are no less prone than their European cousins to hoarding, they have to put all these useless essentials somewhere. That's where the garage comes in.

Unfortunately, as one wise person pointed out to me, this means that people fill their garages with worthless junk, while their expensive cars rust outside.

Signs

Odd Products

Rice: a "food alternative"

Wild Bra Chase

Mrs Newbie owes me big-time.

The other day I mentioned that I would be passing her favourite mall later that morning, and unwisely asked if she needed anything. "Yes, please," she replied, coming down the stairs and thrusting something soft into my hand. "Can you go to Macy's and get me two of these, one in white and one in black?"

I looked down at the small object in my hand. It was a beige bra.

Now I'm not a macho kind of guy. I've probably changed as many nappies as my wife (mostly without gagging too), and was recently complemented on my ability to tie my daughter's hair in a ponytail. But women's underwear is something different entirely. Although I don't mind admitting I've undone and removed my fair share for partners over the years, I've never actually bought any myself. The prospect therefore filled me with a certain dread.

Having reached and parked at the mall, my first problem was how to transport the object in question. I couldn't very well stuff it in my trouser pocket or walk around casually holding it my hand, so I emptied some shopping out of a Target bag in the back of my car, and stuffed the bra in there. At least that way I wouldn't draw too much attention to myself. "Here I go," I said, pulling up my man-pants.

After a great deal of searching around Macy's (are these stores designed to baffle men?), I finally found the lingerie department, where I decided against rifling through the racks of women's breast supports like a pervert, opting instead for a more inconspicuous approach: timidly asking an assistant for help.

"I'm sorry," the assistant said rather too loudly for my liking. "We don't sell that brand of bra. That's a Saks label."

So I stowed the bra away again in my Target bag, summoned up some courage for a second attempt, and headed over to the swanky Saks Fifth Avenue store on the far side of the mall. There, in an even more well-concealed nook of the shop, I tracked down their "intimate apparel" department, where a tall, smartly-dressed lady ignored my embarrassed look as I repeated my request and extricated the flesh-coloured undergarment from the Target bag.

After a cursory examination of the bra's label, she said, "I'm terribly sorry, sir. This isn't one of ours. But I'm pretty certain they have it at Nordstrom. Let me give them a call." And without waiting for my approval, she picked up the phone, dialled a number that she clearly knew off by heart, and spoke to her counterpart at Nordstrom.

"Hi Joanne, this is Sara Jane at Saks. I have a gentleman here who's looking for a size medium Luxuria bra in white and in black. Do you have them in stock? You do? Wonderful!" She then turned back to me, brazenly asked for my first name (as only Americans can do), relayed it to her colleague, explained where I had to go, and told me to ask for Joanne. But before hanging up, she said, "By the way, would you also like it nude?"

"Pardon?" I sputtered.
"Joanne wants to know if you'd also like it nude," she repeated with a completely straight face.

This was an optional service I definitely had not expected. Envisioning the prospect of a naked Joanne handing me skimpy undies, I cursed myself for not having bought any before, and was already planning my next shopping spree when the assistant's voice woke me from my reverie.

"Sir, I said, 'Do you also want it in nude: the same colour as the one you already have?'" Kicking myself at my clearly testosterone-fuelled naivety, I apologised for my momentary absentmindedness and shook my head, before heading over to Nordstrom, where a fully-clothed Joanne sold me a white and a black bra, which she delicately folded in paper before placing them in a square, white Nordstrom bag with string handles.

"May I?" Joanne said, gently but firmly taking the plastic Target bag from me and wrapping my wife's bra in with the other two. "You don't need this, do you?" she said, throwing the Target bag in a bin as if it were a soiled nappy.

"No," I lied, hurrying out of the store.