True Life: I'm Addicted to Perfume

Once upon a time, there was a 19-year-old college freshman who had like, two bottles of perfume. She decided it probably wasn't logical to go on $50 spending sprees at Bath and Body Works, and that the whole investing in the future thing was a better way to spend her money. Everyone was all "hey, look how mature you are, saving up for your future and realizing material goods aren't the path to happiness!"

How cute, 19-year-old self. Now fast forward two years.

Somehow, in the course of two years, I've managed to go from having two perfumes to acquiring thirty. I am not even exaggerating. I could literally go a month wearing a different perfume every day. I mean, my skin has gotten to the points where it's so confused--it doesn't know why it smells like lavender one day and "noir tease" (what does a noir tease even smell like??) the next. The top of my dresser is sprawling with vanillas and coconut, and it's slowly encroaching on my earring tree, which as anyone knows, is a very sacred space! I mean, it's a problem, which involves getting into my earring addiction, but we'll save that for a later time.

The thing about my perfume addiction is that it started from a mere desire to have a collection. When I was little, I had a stuffed cat collection, and everyone congratulated me on my dedication to beanie babies. My fourth grade class was just so impressed by my 75 cats, and always wanted to come over to my house to use me for my material possessions play with them.

So I figured that I would start a new collection, and my friends would be equally impressed by my dedication, and my roommates would be racing into my room, dying to try my new vanilla bean perfume, and they'd go "Kira, you are the queen of the fragrance-universe, let me bow down to you and shower you with admiration!"

Okay, so perhaps I've embellished on my expectations a little bit. But you get the idea.

As it turns out, people are a lot less impressed by collections when you have to go forth and be an adult. Because *gasp* having a collection requires no skill whatsoever. You just go into a store and buy a lot of shit, and then you have a room full of too much of the same thing and a pile of regrets. Like, congratulations, you have too much stuff and no money! How impressive!

So some things that worked when you were ten don't work when you're twenty-one. Noted.

But why perfume? Why not collect elephant figurines, or something even slightly more unique?

A wise question, dear reader. I commend you on your curiosity. As my roommate Maria observed in her blog, my feet have this tendency to smell. Instead of smelling of roses or vanilla, or something equally appealing, they just smell bad. According to Maria, "they smell like a moose that vomited." The whole foot odor problem has improved since last year, but in a mad dash to not scare humans away from me, I bought every perfume ever to make the rest of my body smell like Christmas cookies and love. So as soon as people catch a whiff of my sneakers and start to hate my very being, the smell my arms and instantly forgive me. Or, at the very least, aren't utterly revolted by my foot hygiene (yes, I do wash my feet, the world just hates me).

Now that the foot odor problem has ceased, I just feel obligated to buy more perfume. I feel it's a personal attack on Bath and Body Works if they come out with a new fragrance and I'm just like "lalala don't care." And that's just rude.

Obviously if you're not impulsive with financial spending, you're a rude person. That's a perfectly logical conclusion to come to.

So, until further notice, I will continue to acquire perfume until my collection falls of my dresser and I start drowning in vanilla.

The latest victim

Namaste.