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Home > Archive > Apr 17, 2008

A Tub of Popcorn Therapy
By Sharon May
Managing Editor
The other day, I ducked into a bed-and-bath store at the mall to pick up some scented soap and bath oil for a friend's birthday. It's always a good "What on earth do I get her?" answer.
Stepping into the New Age apothecary, I was swept up into a heady Eden of exotic scents and esoteric products: body scrubs, exfoliating creams, antioxidant gels, hydrating emollients, cell-rejuvenating formulas, cleansing splashes, and oils scented with scientifically combined "natural botanicals" such as chaparral-anise-crabgrass, kumquat-dandelion-seaweed, and quince-huckleberry-fennel.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, all packed with aromatic personal-enhancement products, and tables overflowing with tempting pre-selected assortments of cellophane-wrapped, bow-bedecked pots and potions of aromatherapeutic natural botanicals crowded the floor.
My head swam with the array of choices.
When, I wondered, did our culture become obsessed with such herbal neurotica? 
When some of us started making fat fistfuls of money from it, I concluded after choosing some grapefruit-yucca-sesame "foaming herbal bath oil” (formerly, bubble bath), a matching "cleansing bar" (formerly, soap) and lead-free 100 percent natural honeycomb flambeau, (formerly, candle). At the checkout counter, I went into sticker shock. My three aromatherapy items came to $57.49!
After the clerk revived me with another New-Agey aromatherapy – jojoba-pistachio smelling salts, I pulled out my non-botanical calculator and compared the price of my pre-therapeutic wax candles at home to the price of the new gussied-up version.
I calculated that printing the word "aromatherapy" on the product label and thereby adding the benediction of "healing mystical properties" to the product hiked up the candle's price approximately $17.35. Oh, sure, the candle smells nice, but I may as well stick a wick in a roll of money and set a match to it, because that's what I smell burning.
Geesh, I thought, looking around at the collection of therapeutic elixirs. We must be the most anxious, stressed-out generation of people who ever tromped the planet. 
It's strange, really, that we're such nervous wrecks, considering the relative physical ease of our modern lives. I mean, it's not as though we have to bring down a charging wooly mammoth to feed the family. Which makes me wonder, by the way: Was there ever an UN-wooly mammoth – maybe just a fuzzy mammoth, or a stubbly mammoth?
But as I was saying, it's doubtful, also, that we're likely to find ourselves leaping from the fangs of a saber-toothed tiger on the way to the grocery store, as our Neanderthal ancestors faced in acquiring their daily meat.
 Nor are we any longer terrified at omens of imminent destruction by the gods in every boom of thunder and solar eclipse. Yet, incredibly, our prehistoric predecessors faced all these frightening irritants without needing "therapy."  Of course, it could be that's what their cave paintings were all about.
But I'll bet there was never a particular grunt meaning "therapy" or a cave outfitted with a stone couch and a small crock of disposable leopard skin hankies. 
In our defense, however, our hirsute-mammoth-fleeing ancestors never had to face a 5 o'clock traffic jam and being gridlocked bumper-to-bumper with a bazillion soldiers of commerce armed with road rage. It’s a good thing WE have "therapy" to help us cope!
I think our new millennium should be dubbed the Age of Therapy.
As proof, just note how our nouns have evolved into “therapies.” 
A good backrub, for example, is now "massage therapy." And we don’t just shake a leg on the dance floor anymore; it's "dance therapy." And that soothing tune from the stereo? "Music therapy." Even my One-A-Days have evolved into "vitamin therapy," and it's obvious that we can't eat these days without subjecting ourselves to some kind of "nutrition therapy."
What have we come to? I thought, looking around the store.
And with this dose of reality therapy, much to the clerk's disdain, I started returning my pricey selections to the shelves. 
I figured when it comes to aromatherapy-enhanced bath oil, I can make my own with Dawn dish soap, a few tablespoons of olive oil and a squirt of the Avon perfume I got as a gift three birthdays ago. I'll call it "Ageless Dawn." Or, I could use my Joy for dishes, stir in a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and call it "Vanilla Joie." 
Either way, I'll save enough money to indulge in a session of dinner-and-movie therapy, with a tub of that wonderfully aromatic movie popcorn.
Now that's an aromatherapy I can sink my teeth into!

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