2018 Hair

We are the type of family who buys toiletries in bulk. We go to the store once or twice a year and purchase all the toothpaste and shampoo we’ll need for the next 6 – 8 months. It’s efficient, we’re never left soap-less, and we save tons of money because we use a 25%-off-your-whole-trip coupon.

The exception is my hair gel. It’s only sold online. I purchase a half dozen tubes at a time and store them with the rest of the toiletries.

Whenever I open a new one, I check—usually by feel because it has a distinctive cap—how many I have left. I was down to one and knew I had to order soon, but imagine my horror when I went to grab the last one and it wasn’t there. There was no gel. Doing this by feel instead of opening the box and looking inside had failed me.

Ordering it wasn’t a problem—it was in stock and would ship immediately, arriving a few days later. But what would I do in the meantime?

I found a half-used bottle of an old hair product under the sink that seemed to be okay. I rubbed it through my hair and sniffed at a curl. My hair smelled like 2018. Like pre-pandemic. Like getting ready to leave the house instead of debate whether I really need to walk out the front door. It smelled like a no-mask life. Like college-is-years-away life.

I used it for two days until the regular gel arrived, and then I tucked the old bottle of hair product under the sink. It’s not 2018 anymore.