Dear Jean Nate After Bath Splash,
You know, it’s funny, I was just recently writing a letter to the Sherlock Holmes Audiobook Cassettes my grandmother lent us back in the 80s and while I was thinking of my grandmother I naturally thought of you. Your smell is so much a part of my memories of her. I don’t know anyone who wears you any more, but how I would love to smell you again. I bet it would slow my heart rate right down. That would be my kind of aroma therapy.
I suppose I could go to a drugstore and buy a bottle of you – are you still at drugstores these days? Maybe Amazon? You know what else is funny, Jean Nate? When I was a kid I never would have thought I could buy you at just any drug store. I mean, that gorgeous bottle with the beautiful cursive writing and the round cap! You were an After Bath Splash for goodness’ sake – I couldn’t imagine anything more grown up and decadent than you. I believed you were fa-a-ancy.
Oh, Jean Nate, I hope that didn’t come out wrong. Fancy is a state of mind, you know? I guess I just didn’t know how within reach you were. How down to earth. I didn’t know I could walk into the CVS near my house and buy you, a 3-pack of blank tapes and a tube of mentos. Maybe it all just goes to show how very much like my grandmother you really were. She was a dignified, put-together woman who didn’t need to spend a fortune to smell nice.
You will always be a part of my memories of my grandmother. I just wanted you to know.
Stay classy,
-e.