candle people

I am not a candle person. I am not a lotion person. I have a hard time going into places like Bath & Body Works, because there are just so many smells, so many candles...bah. I think it has something to do with growing up in the mid-nineties, where the classic middle school gift was gift bag filled with a mix of lotion and candles. Apparently people smelled really bad in the nineties and we felt the need to fix this problem. Every time I received one of those gifts my first thought was, "It would appear you don't know me very well, because there is no way in God's green earth I am slathering myself with Vanilla Peach Dream."

I would always rage inside sitting in the middle of Algebra, when sudden wafts of Country Apple/Cucumber Melon/"Let's take a baked good and make into some type of smell" lotion would siege the classroom asphyxiating my lungs like mustard gas. There would be the same girl, ever so coyly donning her fifth application for the day, rubbing her hands together with slow, deliberate motions. Her pastel contraband perched on her desk with its metallic cap glinting under the fluorescent lights.

I get it. People have dry skin. I am not expecting you to suffer in bloody hand oblivion. But when my 13 year old brain is trying to focus on important matters, like trying to understand how the teacher got 22.5 for x or what Cary Grant movie was going to be on AMC that night, I don't want to be distracted by your fruity indulgence.

Now that my socially awkward days behind me (sorry as I pause to laugh for a moment), I have tried to open myself up to new experiences. And yes, I have found love.

Available at your local Target, this little number is $12.99 worth of pure delight. What's this? A candle you say?

This candle smells exactly like childhood for me. More specifically like the next door neighbor's house. I loved going to that house everything where everything was clean, bright, wooden and old-fashioned. They were the epitome of Kennedy-like preppy goodness from their boat shoes to their madras shorts. Their two sons had all the qualities as someone from Ipanema and would play soccer barefoot in their front yard. I would gawk with my chubby eight year old self pretending to play hopscotch hoping they would ask me to play. Yes, I honed my creepy stalking ways early in life. Needless to say, happy memories.

Walking into a Bath & Body Works still gives me slight panic attacks, but I can say with confidence that I am a candle person now. Well at least one candle.

(And if you are wondering Nivea body lotion also brings childhood memories flooding back of our next door neighbors. It only occurred to me a couple of months ago is that the mom probably used Nivea and that's why she smelled awesome all the time....I know, I'm slow but I usually can get there in the end.)