Perfume for the wife

Well, she wasn’t my wife back then; but Christmas time was coming up and the little lady wanted some perfume. She was specific in the brand; showed me it, made me smell it. But I didn’t write the brand down. It’s okay, I thought; it’s got the same name as a GI Joe.

So my car broke down and I had to get a ride from a friend to the local mall. He swings by and picks me up and we drive out there, all thirty minutes to reach the place.

So we get to the store and I’m looking around at the bottles and nothing looks right. I’m smelling shit, and nothing smells right. What’s worse; none of these perfumes have the name of a GI Joe.

My friend starts to get impatient. “I’ve got things to do, poop,” he says to me.

“I know, I know. I’m going to remember it any second now, I swear.”

“You don’t even know what you’re buying?!” he says incredulously.

“Not exactly,” I say. “But it has the same name as a GI Joe.”

He laughs a bit at this, one of those angry laugh-instead-of-kill laughs.

“Start naming GI Joe’s” I say to him.

He lets out a frustrated breath before starting. “Snake Eyes,” he says.

“Nope”

“Duke”

“Nope”

“Shipwreck”

“Nope”

“Sgt. Slaugher, Flint, Scarlet, Lady Jay”

“Nope, nope, nope, nope.”

“Destro.”

“Destro is Cobra. The perfume is a GI Joe.”

“Oh for christs sake, poop!”

“I gotta get her the right perfume, man. Work with me here!”

“I’m trying, but this is fucking ridiculous!”

A few moments of frustrated silence while the sales clerk moves on to other customers.

“Law”

“Yeah, Law sounds like a fucking perfume, doesn’t it?”

“Fuck you, poop. Buy something now or let’s get the fuck out of here. I have a date to get to.”

Shit. I smelled a few and grabbed one.

Christmas comes and I act like I got the right one, but I didn’t. She opens the box and is like “what’s this?”

“That’s that perfume you wanted,” I tell her.

“No it’s not,” she said.

“Yeah it is.”

“No it’s not.”

“Uh…”

Silence.

“It’s okay,” she says. “I’ll just return it and get the one I wanted.”

“Sorry, I forgot which one it was.”

“Why didn’t you write it down?” she asks.

“I didn’t think I would have to since it has the same name as a GI Joe.”

She laughs. “You’re silly, poop.”

“So what was the name of it,” I ask her. “Cause this has been driving me nuts for days.”

“Ambush,” she says.

Fucking Ambush.

But, as she came to find out at the store; Ambush was discontinued.

There were no other perfumes who had GI Joe names, so she ended up getting something else. It didn’t smell as good as that Ambush stuff, but it was something.

I suck at getting presents.