Stale cologne, coffee conundrum and cutting out
Dear Rachel,
I had a date with a fella last weekend, and it went so well I felt like a 15-year-old again. He even smelled great, which doesn’t always happen around here (downside to being attracted to dirtbags). But now, days later, my first-date jacket still has the same tasteful level of cologne it picked up that night. It’s less tasteful when it lingers. I can’t date this guy if I’ll have a dry-cleaning bill after every dinner. Any tips for getting that cologne smell out of nice clothes?
– Eau de Hombre
Dear Man Scent,
Yeah! Borrow your friends’ clothes to wear on your dates. No seriously, if you like the smell so much, why not just wrap the jacket in plastic to preserve the odor and pull it out whenever you’re feeling lonely. Basically I’m saying, just date the jacket. You don’t have to dress up or leave the house. You don’t have to deal with his secret wife or surprise children down the line. And when you’re ready to break it off, you just spring for one single dry-clean bill.
– Passing the smell test, Rachel
Dear Rachel,
I always hear “don’t drink too much coffee or you’ll be dehydrated.” How can coffee dehydrate you when it’s literally made of water? If coffee pulls water out of things, wouldn’t it just pull water from the cup it’s in? I could understand it if I was just chewing up dry coffee beans like aspirin tablets, but I’m drinking a cup of water with some brown coloring in it. I just need to know what’s what, because it hasn’t killed me yet, so why stop now?
– Justifying My Habit
Dear Hopped Up,
Hold on. You chew your aspirin? I can’t even chew a Tic Tac. I pretty much let gum dissolve in my mouth before I sink my teeth into it. The thought of crunching some medicine that is probably bitter and acrid like it’s no big is enough to send me screaming and crying to a sensory deprivation chamber. I think dehydration is the least of the reasons you should consider cutting back on the coffee, amigo.
– All cream no sugar, Rachel
Dear Rachel,
I hired a contractor to do some cutting-into-ceilings-type work at my house. He asked for a 50% deposit before ordering supplies & starting work. Fine. Months later, he got halfway done, stopped because of inclement weather and asked for the remaining 50%. I laughed him out of my house. My friends tell me I just guaranteed a job-crappily-done, whereas I want him to have incentive to come back. What’s the right strategy here?
– Lies, Damn Lies, and Contractors
Dear Customer,
The right strategy was selling your house and finding a new one that has whatever you want already cut into the ceiling. Even if that house was in another country, like Belize. Even if you really like your house now, and you have a life established, with friends and family. Because as hard as it is to get cologne out of anything, it’s even harder to get a contractor INTO anything.
– In my own sweet time, Rachel
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