Directions

I’m sure we’ve all seen that deodorant advert, for the new Lynx fragrance. The one where he put it on and then turns into that hideously fattening lump of chocolate with the heinous smile. Then he walks around having girls biting chunks of his ass off and stealing his arm. That one.

Well being the corporate whore that I am, I bought that deodorant recently. And yes it smells nice but I haven’t turned into chocolate man or had girls chasing me. Let me make it clear that on neither account am I disappointed, I just feel I’ve been conned somehow. Conned and then insulted.

Reading the back of the can, as all people do. I find the “directions”: a fancy and patronising word for “instructions”. The tell me to “hold can 15cm away from the body to spray”. Which is unhelpful. Unhelpful because I don’t know what fifteen centimetres looks like and unhelpful because it doesn’t tell me how to spray the deodorising mist from its pressurised prison; it simply tells me what to do before this.

Following this statement and several others it goes on to say “do not spray on a naked flame” again this isn’t particularly helpful and comes about six years too late. Me and a group of friends decided it would be fun to imitate a TV show and use a deodorant can as a flamethrower, we made it interesting as instead of the undead we decided to torch an eraser. Near a wooden fence. And a stack of dry wood. And several houses. That’s by the by though we never got that far before Dean’s leg almost caught fire.

The piese d'resistance: “Chocolate scented body spray. This is not food. Do not ingest.” It’s actually highly depressing that obesity has reached such a critical state that manufacturers have to put “don’t eat me” on their deodorant. Although *cough* I *cough cough* thought that *cough cough coughack* thought it was a breath freshener.