Lip Balm Junkie

I'm the kind of guy that enjoys having moist lips. Before you get the wrong idea what I mean is I hate when my lips are dried out. I not talking about being a little chapped, I mean really dried out. The kind of dry that leaves the small dead strands of skin on your upper lip. The kind that you always pull off like you do to the small strings of white that are left attached to an orange just after you finish peeling it. You slowly pull off these small stands of dead lip one by one until you pull one that is attached just barely to well. And after you force yourself to pull it off a small drop of blood forms on your upper lip. And it hurts. It's quite the image isn't it. The kind of mental picture that leave you cringing. When your lips are that dry every smile shoots tingling pain through your face and leaves you with that same cringe. That's the kind of dry lips I hate.

When I was younger, probably age 9-12 ish, I had the worst dry lips in the world. They were always horrible. My lips were well past the small strands of dead lip skin. They were practically facial lip scab cancer bad. Imagine Viggo Mortensen's lips in the movie Hidalgo. Now imagine it worse and on my 11-year-old face. Because my lips were so dry I would lick them and they would just dry out and get worse and worse. It was a very self destructive behavior.

Then one day something changed and I don't know why but I stop with the licking and stated with the chapstick. (Of course I should say lip balm seeing as how Chapstick is a brand but you all know what I mean.) My first try at lip replenishment treatment was with Carmex. Do you have any idea how badly Carmex stings when applied to lips as bad as mine. That still holds true today. If you go a week or so without using any chapstick and then you take a swipe of Carmex it will burn every first time.

I went through a huge phase where I would only use Carmex but after a few years I started trying other brands to see what I liked. At the time I kept reverting back to Carmex however, it seemed to be the best. All of my friends accused me of being addicted to Carmex but I thought that was rediculous and to prove them wrong I kept trying other brands

Anyway, fast forward to now. Right now my favorite is Burt's Bees. It keeps my lips nice and moist and it never stings upon application. I also really like the minty scent it has.

The reason I tell you about this is because of an experience I had just this week. I had recently worked my way down to the bottom of another tube of Burt's Bees lip balm and was indesperate need of some more. I told Megan and we decided to grab some while we were out buying groceries Monday night. We went and bought our groceries, checked out and had somehow managed to leave without buying any lip balm. It's ok we said. We need to go to another store and buy me some new socks anyway and we'll just pick some up while we're there.

As we drove to the other store I was highly anticipating buying and applying some Burt's Bees. The closer we got the store and the closer we were to getting lip balm I began to notice that my lips were becoming more and more chapped. I thought about this for a while and commented to Megan about it. I made an analogy of my lips to food. I said, "You know how when you're getting ready to eat and your start salivating before you even have any food. I can feel my lips drying out in anticipation of getting new chapstick." All she had to say about that was, "You're addicted."

My name is Shaun Mayo and I'm a lip balmaholic.

Geo Morning

In case you don't know, Megan and I drive a Geo Metro. There is a stigma that goes along with driving a Geo that immediately equates to joke. It takes a certain thick skinned breed of people to drive a Geo. If simply driving a Geo Metro wasn't joke enough there is always the fact that I'm 6'6" adding to the laughter. I don't know how many times I've had to explain to people about the three week contortionist class I took just to learn how to fold my long gnarly body into a space of similar proportions.

This morning after I dropped Megan off at work I was driving home to gather a few things before heading to school. On the way to our apartment there is a small strip of road that is under construction just before my exit. As I entered the construction I noticed the car approaching behind me was also a Geo Metro. Under any other circumstance I would have made some joke to myself about the car, but who am I to talk. (Lately if I make a joke about another Geo it's usually about the fact that the other Geo is only a two door and we drive the superior four door model.) The construction ended and as I approached my exit the Geo behind me changed lanes and pulled up beside me to pass me. As he passed the driver looked over and threw me a wave.

That's when it hit me. I am part of an elite group of proud, self-confident people who drive Geos. I had no idea who the driver of the other car was nor had I ever seen him before. But he understood that we had something in common that set us apart for the rest of the human race. The Geo Metro.

I've seen similar events to this before. Next time you go for a drive watch for people who ride motorcycles. They always wave to each other regardless of who they are. And it's not just any wave, they all do it in the same way. They put their inside lane hand down and simply open it. It's discrete but it's enough to say "Hey, I understand you, fellow bike rider."

I was contemplating all of this while I finished the drive home. I was even fortunate enough to spot another Geo Metro as I turned into my apartment complex. It was a great reassurance we're not alone on the road.

When the stranger in the other Geo waved to me this morning it was at that moment I realized we do not need to know each other to understand each other. To all of you Geo Metro drivers out there; be proud of your car and who you are. You are part of network of people who know exactly what your going through. We've got your back. There is no shame in what you drive.

And 47 mpg doesn't hurt either.

Really!? Gum!

I know I haven't put up anything for while. I'd like to say it's because I've been really busy but that is not quite the case. However, this event was to upsetting not to write about.

The other day I was going to my HR class which is in large lecture hall. This particular room seats over two hundred people and has theater type seats. (The kind of seats that are padded and fold up when you stand.) Even though the room has seating for 0ver two hundred there are less than fifty people in the class. Oddly enough we have assigned seats. Do teachers really care where you sit when you're in college? Apparently some do. Mostly our professor want us to sit close to the front as well as sit close to the people in our study groups (also assigned.)

When I entered the classroom it was just like any other day. I made my way to to the third seat in from the left three rows back and prepared myself to plop into my seat next to BJ. While I was in the motion of sitting down I noticed something out of the corner of my eye that was striking enough to cause a change in my downward coarse. I immediately stood upright and stared at a wad of bright green gum stuck to the underside of my seat.

Gum! Really?
I pointed it out to the people around me and straightway began with a similar rant. I assume anyone who sits in the seats in this room is an adult. Probably a student here. What kind of person would stick a wet, diseased wad of gum under their seat. We're all adults. Didn't we all learn how gross that is when we were children. What kind of person thinks they're so much above everyone else that the unwritten rules of courtesy don't apply to them? Would it really have been so inconvenient to dispose of your gum in another way that you had to put it under your seat? Is asking you to spit it into a piece of paper to much to ask? What about walking to a trash can and spitting it there? Or is getting up in the middle of a lecture just too embarrassing for you? You could have tried waiting until the end of the lecture and spit it out then. If all the other suggestions are just too difficult for you and you needed the gum out of your mouth immediately you could have swallowed it. But no. You choose the one option that effects more than just you. You chose to selfishly stick the gum under your seat. Why do all college students feel that they need to stick it to the man and do the absurd? You sir or ma'am are absurd. I would even go as far as to say that you are a terrible friend to your fellow man.

Maybe I know their situation. Maybe they had a really good reason for putting the gum there. I don't know their situation. They could have been saving it later. Or maybe someone else in the room had just fallen to floor in need of CPR and they quickly put their gum somewhere nobody would step in it and rushed to the aid of the victim.No matter what possible excuse I come up with I just don't think it is the real reason for their infraction. I still think your a bad person.

Let this be a warning to all of you. If you leave your gum stuck to the underside of a chair or table or anywhere it shouldn't be you are a bad person. And you don't want to be a bad person.