Tonight's entry will not be edited for grammar or poor spelling (unlike 15% of the time when I actually do check for such things) and will be written in one sitting, one take and told on the fly. The only revisions to the story will be links added so you can see some of the elements I'm talking about in the story. But first before I begin, I must have a topic. And tonight's topic are one of two options:
1. The wild tour of Wild United (heads)
2. My adventures at the Yankee Candle Company (tails)
I have purchased a diet coke from the vending machine, and tonight's soundtrack for this entry will be the new Death Cab For Cutie record, Transatlanticism. I have a shiny new quarter with the state of Kentucky on the back ready to be flipped.
It's tails. Let us begin the story.
Sunday afternoon I was looking for something, anything, to do other than the things I so desperately wanted to do and couldn't find a solution to this problem. I got in my car and ended up driving north on 275 to 96 and found myself heading to Twelve Oaks mall. For those uninitated to the magic of western wayne county, the city of Novi has every shop in the universe ever imagineable within a several mile radius. If you lived in Novi, you'd never ever have to leave the city because everything is within driving distance. It's amazing. So I stumbled around the mall until I was in sight of the establishment I was looking for: the Yankee Candle company.
I visited this store once upon a time and I thought my nose was going to fall off from an overdose of various frangrances. But this time I was bound and detirmined to conquer said store with great zest. I was going to find my ideal scent if it took all damn day, and I was going to have a candle so fragrant and beautiful that I would light it daily and not grow tired of the scent emanating from the wax and flame.
Walking within five feet of the store I could already smell the mash up of various candles and their scents into one giant stew. And the minute I hit the store's doorway I received a potent whiff of ..wait..not candles...but someone had let off a massive amount of methane. It wasn't the beautiful fragrance of a candle, but someone should have lit one immediately. Okay so after that evaporated I surveyed the store, and it was stocked by color code. that's colour code for my canadian friends who always feel slighted by the lack of the letter "u" in many of our wourds.
I made a mad dash to my favorite colour..blue and immediately set my sights on taking a whiff of "Bay Breeze", and I fell in love instantly. This light, crisp scent was worthy of a place on my desk at home..which is littered with empty diet pepsi/coke cans and numerous CD-Rs. However, I couldn't just purchase one and discriminate against all of the others. That would be extremely short sighted of me.
The next candle I fell in love with was "Clean Cotton", and clean it most certainly was. Almost too clean, it got me very suspicious and though I was inches away from putting that on the worthy list, I declined solely out of the name. Clean Cotton just reminds me too much of Will Hardac for some reason, and even now I can't figure out why.
Next up was Hydragena, and for a second I convinced myself it was made from real snake. However, this brings up another awesome potential entry for another day: made up Yankee Candle Scents. And while Hydragena was nowhere on the final list, it does present some interesting future purchases...perhaps for spring.
And spreaking of seasons, I made it a point to avoid anything and everything involving christmas and holiday scents...for I have a feeling my mother will be purchasing those on her own accord and I'll be enjoying those scents all winter long.
Other very nice scents I tried: Balsam Fir, Chardonnay (just to see if it really containted alcohol. Much to my chagrin it was all apples and cinnamon smelling), Sweaty Chach Detroit Trance Club Guy (strictly a fanciful jest...but I'm sure the ladies of Dluv would like to take that fragrance home with them!), Midsummer's Night (which was a close third place), Merlot (again a total let down), Storm Watch (sort of smelled like worms after rain), Watermelon (which will be purchased in spring rest assured).
But in the end I purchased Seaside Holiday and Bay Breeze. The blue, oceanic theme won out again...if anything because I just love that smell in the summer time and I'll need as much summer scented stuff as I can. Coconut Bay was also a strong contender with Midsummer's Night...but perhaps that will be for my next trip. I intentionally only purchased the smaller versions of the candles.
The moral of the story? I'm not a metrosexual. I'm not a homosexual. This goes against common belief I'm sure...but I'm just a guy who enjoys candles. So shut up.
And thank you Yankee Candle. Thank you for being there when I needed you.
ps. Will Calcutt rules.
Posted by rob at November 18, 2003 07:52 PM
