I was leafing through the Sunday newspaper advertising flyers when I came upon a weird product, something called “K-Y Intense” described as “arousal gel for her.”
This piqued my curiosity for several reasons, none of them being prurient. After all, it was a family newspaper and it wouldn’t allow advertising that we can’t see on TV and elsewhere. Mainly I wondered what it was and whether it would be worth the money.
The picture of the product looked like something from the opening scene of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” a giant, ominous obelisk of some sort. Had there been a pack of excited monkeys dancing around, I would have thought it was promoting a sequel. It was a formidable looking product, but the price was even more formidable: $25.99. However, “Walgreen’s register rewards” brought the price down to $23.99. My curiosity may have been piqued, but that’s all the information there was.
This particular ad was in a whole section of coupons, and since it mentioned Walgreen’s I put my investigative reporter experience to work and dug through the entire pile of Sunday supplements until I found the one from Walgreen’s. My suspicions were correct, there was another ad in there for K-Y Intense, and it told me what I wanted to know, which is how much you get for $23.99. In tiny type, it stated the size as “.34 oz.” I immediately started wondering how many .34 ounces there are in a pound.
After an extensive search I found the family calculator, divided it out, and found that there are 47 such portions in a pound. Continuing my figuring, I multiplied that by the price of $23.99, and discovered that K-Y Intense, whatever it is, costs $1,127.52 per pound, on sale.
Holy mackerel, I thought, at that price the arousal must be something to behold. It brought to mind the old Brylcream jingle, “A little dab’ll do ya,” but there can’t be all that many dabs in only .34 ounces.
I have no idea what’s inside the package, or how come the package is so large-looking for such a minuscule amount. But I started figuring other ways to arouse someone, all of which would be cheaper. For example, the finest steak at Safeway only sets you back around $20 a pound, then you can go to the wine section and get the fancy stuff for what works out to only about $30 a pound. Heck, at that rate you could arouse half the population of Oak Harbor for less than the cost of one pound of K-Y Intense.
If I was a rich man I’d like to get a box of K-Y Intense just to see what’s inside, not for arousal purposes. But even if I had the money, I wouldn’t have the courage to buy it and have the teller give me that arched-eyebrow expression. The alternative is to go to Walmart and use one of those do-it-yourself checkout stands, but whenever you try something like that there’s always a problem. The scanner locks up, warning lights flash, buzzers sound, and pretty soon you’re surrounded by checkers, other customers and store security, staring at you and your box of K-Y Intense or whatever it is you’re trying to buy in private. So the truth is I’ll never know what’s inside that box or if it’s remotely worth the money.
On the positive side, it makes steak and wine look a whole lot cheaper.
