It's not Smile, but it's the best I've got...

I've bitched about mentioned the climate here before.

Once or twice.

Maybe.

There is, however, one aspect I'm not sure I ever addressed. The dryness. Sure, it's fuckin' hot here. Sure, it's fuckin cold here. We get snow, we get rain, but not nearly as much as they get some places.

On average, Carson City receives an average of 10.8 inches of rain. Hell, Death Valley gets about 2.

On top of all that, you've got wind. Lots of wind. That dries stuff out winter or summer.

The dryness here impacts many aspects of daily life:

Your skin: I've almost always got at least one or two hangnails, but then, I don't really use lotion. My lips are almost always on the verge chapping. My eyes sometimes feel as if they're full of sand.

Your hair, of course is drier, straighter. You get thirsty faster, and those that landscape are in an almost constant battle to keep yards alive, let alone thriving.


For me, the worst one is dry eyes. I found out a loooong time ago that my eyes tended to dry out in this climate. Sitting in front of a computer all day doesn't help.

It's not unbearable or anything, I mean, you take steps, right?

You know I use Carmex, and take care of my hair. I suppose I could use lotion.

Eyes? Well, there are some choices.

Visine

Not bad, it helps keep them moist, but it's just a wetting agent.

Clear eyes

Anyone, anyone?

Or any of many, many takes off on those. They all work. Hell, read the ingredients. They're basically the same fucking thing. Visine has what, 9 types? How different can they be, I mean really? Some years ago (theres that phrase again) a friend of mine handed me a bottle of eye drops. It is, bar none, the most unique such container I've ever seen.

It had a stylized face on it, and a single word.

Smile.

I turned the bottle over, and the instructions/ingredients were in Japanese. Turns out a friend of his had hosted a Japanese foreign exchange student, and this was something he'd brougut over. I opened the bottle, set myself, and its's : right eye, drop, left eye, drop; right eye, drop, left eye, drop. Just like always.

As I'm going for the second drop, Mark is saying 'No...Only 1!!'

Let's see if I can describe it. It felt almost as if my eyes had frozen solid.

But they were burning.

In that good way. And, there's no other way to describe it, but they made my eyes taste peppermint. I know that's a tough concept to wrap your head around, but take my word for it.

The best part was, they worked.

Once I got used to them, their intensity (and only used one drop per eye) they were a wonder. I only ever had one bottle, and by the time it ran out, I'd lost touch with Mark and the others. I've been looking for another bottle ever since.

Literally.

Then one day, I saw that they were releasing Rhoto eye drops in the States, and I was stoked. I knew from my research that, while not Smile per se, they were in the same class. I rushed out and bought a bottle....and was sadly disappointed. It had been Americanized. It was nothing like the class of 'hard minty eyedrops' that they use in Japan. It was, in fact 'almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Smile,' to paraphrase Douglas Adams.

Then, the other day on Ebay, I found these. I had to order some. The were in my mailbox when I came home Christmas morning. They are much more the shit, though I still don't know if they're as strong as Smile was. Could be some fuzzy rememberiing on my part too.

Anyway, enough blather.

Buenos con queso,

T.