My baby buys me things...

Last week I was over at A's house after hanging out with friends most of the night. She presented me with a bar of soap.

Ordinarily, I would think she was trying to make a crack about my personal hygiene, you know, telling me I stink. I asked her. She just really likes the soap from that particular store and thought I would like the scent, which, as a matter of fact, I do. I flipped it over, only to find the tag glaring back at me where it was written, in large, friendly letters:

Demon in the Dark Soap
Peel the wax, lather & wait for your dark side to appear.

I liked it. It makes bathing sound so sexy. After that, there's the UPC code, then the weight and price information. This particular bar of soap weighs .450 pounds, at $33.79 a pound, making what I held in my hand, a bar of soap worth $15.21 before taxes.

In all my life, the most expensive thing I had ever used in any form of self-grooming was an electric razor, which probably cost about the same, pound-for-pound, as the soap. I have since started using the $15 bar of soap, and I'm impressed. Not so impressed that I'm going to become a regular patron of these stores, but I'm not complaining- I smell pretty damn nice, as a matter of fact.

Last night we had plans to spend time together, and I was thinking of heading out, so I text messaged her to see if she was off work. She was at Border's doing a little shopping. I asked her if she could pick me up a copy of The Iraq Study Group Report, as I am a curious American with gobs of opinions who loves to be informed. I started reading it this morning, as she was in the shower, and her brother and I were watching the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. I'm only a few pages in, but something caught my eye and made me wonder about the integrity of what I was reading:

Authorized Edition? What the fuck? There's another edition somewhere, perhaps one with more truth to it? Perhaps one that isn't quite as objective? Or is this just all a ploy to sell more books, much like George Lucas' releasing 18 different versions of the Star Wars Trilogy, because he knows idiots like me will buy it, just so I can, if the mood strikes me, see the deleted scene from A New Hope where they go back and digitally add Jabba the Hutt?

Sadly, only time will tell. Me, I'm going to get back to reading. More on all this later.