Of Body Shops and Men
Last Friday I was at a dinner party. It came up in conversation that Emeryville, where I work, is host to about every retail chain out there, and Berkeley merchants complain that it’s sucking the life out of their businesses.
“I am, however,” I said, “grateful to finally have a Body Shop in reach.”
A woman whom I’d just met that night replied, confused, “You mean The Body Shop? Oh, no, you must mean a car body shop.”
Which didn’t even make sense in context, but the idea of a man grateful for a Body Shop inspired in her so much cognitive dissonance, that she was grasping for any other explanation.
Me! A car body shop! As if!
Once, early in our relationship, Pocahontas was lamenting that she didn’t have any moisturizer with her.
“I have some,” I said.
“Uh, no, it’s okay,” she said.
“It’s no problem,” I said, retreiving my Body Shop body butter
Her eyes got big. “OK, thanks!”
“What, did you think I was talking about Vaseline Intensive Care?”
“Yes.”
She has since remarked that I’m the only man she’s ever gone out with who had better hair and skin products than she did. And, further:
“You’re the closest thing I can get to a gay man who’ll still fuck me.”
(A line from Six Different Ways I’d told her about when I saw it there.)
=v= You youngsters have no sense of history. The Body Shop was actually founded in Berkeley, and it was originally in a building that used to be a car body shop (ackk! pthppt! nyet!). Anita Roddick visited Berkeley, bought one of everything, swiped the concept and name, and eventually conquered the world with it (including Berkeley). I liked the orginal one better, of course.
Posted by Jym on April 5 2003 08:39
Are you talking about Body Tyme --- which still exists in a few Bay Area locations (incl. Berkeley). Body Tyme donated gift certificates of their products to KQED for the radio station's current pledge drive as premiums to pledgers). [Sorry, couldn't help plugging for NPR.]
Posted by Pocahontas on April 6 2003 12:12
Yup, that's what Jym was talking about -- the Body Time used to be called the Body Shop before the Body Shop was, of which I'm well aware.
The history doesn't affect my preference for the Body Shop's products over Body Time's (which I've tried.)
Posted by Zed on April 6 2003 12:25