Close Call at a CVS

Posted on 05. Feb, 2007 by K. Armadilla in Close Calls

Gentlemen,

I confess I’ve been harboring a secret shame, one that’s been there ever since brother Roblinsky asked me to join the ranks of this blog.  You see, having never hunted cougar, nay, having never even caught the scent of one of these rare beasts, having been, for that matter, woefully ignorant as to what the word “cougar” even means…well, you may understand why I’ve spent so many nights in agony, wondering when the moment would come when I was exposed.

But I am proud to say that, unlike my failure with every other classification of women, in this case I decided to do something about it.  I read my hunters bible.  I honed my cougar-vision.  I picked out clothes and rehearsed lines, making sure that my first encounter would not be my last.  And then this happens:

I spotted her prowling my local CVS.  This is not a typical cougar haunt, I’m aware, but yet there one was, in aisle 2, eyeing (as the bible promised!) the shelves of women’s hair products.  She was taller than me, incredibly attractive, and had obviously just stopped by the store while in the middle of a jog: track suit, a thin mist of sweat, hair in a ponytail.  I was smitten–smitten despite the fact that the 10-years-younger version of this woman would be utterly and completely out of my league.  Perhaps that was my first mistake.

I took a deep breath and approached.  It just so happened that I had a line prepared for this exact scenario, nothing fancy, but effective, I thought: “Is there,” I would say, nodding toward the bottles of shampoo “anything for men over here?”  Surely this polite, non-threatening opening would lead us quickly to a comic discussion of the super-saturated hair care market, even to the point of her revealing her preferred brand.  I had a line for that too: “Oh!  A girl I once dated used [brand X]!  I really liked it!”  This despite the fact that the last girl I dated (five years ago) used Pert Plus.

I took my position beside her, faced the shelves, curved my lips in a wry smile, and let loose the line with all my confidence behind it.

Nothing.

Not a blink, not a turn of the head, not a twitching of even a single muscle.

I’m not entirely sure of what happened next–I remember my heart leaping into my mouth, then walking away in a daze.  I suppose I went to browse another shelf in the interest of saving some scrap of my dignity–god knows how much time passed before I realized I was staring at the full line of “Just for Men” products.  For some reason I went up to the cashier and bought a bottle of Vidal Sassoon–to make myself feel like a gentleman, I suppose.  The cougar was nowhere to be seen.

Guys, I think I need help.  Can any of the more experienced hunters out there tell me where I went wrong?

Tags: cvs, first time, help, hun