WARNING WARNING - EXTENDED RANT AHEAD - WARNING WARNING

(Yeah, I know Mike says that none of our readers will read anything longer than one screen.  But I got an idea for this article this afternoon and a bunch of good jokes, so here they are.  Don't read them if you're easily bored, I guess. - Jordan)

As some of you probably know, I got a job recently.  I work in a furniture factory - one that manufactures college dorm furnishings, specifically, which makes me shudder, since I remember what the rooms at my small, restrained Christian liberal arts school went through.  We send this stuff to the University of Michigan.

But anyway, since this job covers me in approximately a hojillion tons of sawdust, I need a shower when I get home.  Since I get off work at 3:30 PM and my brother isn't off till 6, I take the opportunity to use the upstairs shower, which is about six times the size and comfort factor of the downstairs one - it's actually a whirlpool/shower unit.  Since it's the bigger and better of our facilities, you can guess that it is the domain of my mother, and as such is filled with the sort of flower-and-fruit derived stuff that makes men wonder why anyone, ever, would need a cleansing agent more complicated than Head and Shoulders - to say nothing of combinations of cucumber and melon and so forth.

I forbear in saying anything about this, usually, since my mother gets harrassed by the elderly all day (she's the secretary at an apartment complex catering to senior citizens) - she's a hardworking woman and can relax however she darn well pleases.  But, today, one of the bottles caught my attention:  "St. Ives SWISS VANILLA & Vitamin E Moisturizing Body Wash."  I guess that's the working title of this product.  Directly above the company logo is a scene of mountains, presumably the Swiss Alps (one figures it isn't gonna be the Sierra Nevadas, at any rate), surmounted by a proclamation of "SWISS FORMULA."  Down at the bottom of the label, there's a picture of a mortar (grinding bowl) and pestle (grinding wandy-thing) filled with flowering plants.  The mortar is decorated with the design of the Swiss flag (yes, I realize that knowing the Swiss flag and what a mortar and pestle are make me a huge dork), and I can only assume the stuff inside is the aforementioned SWISS VANILLA.

Hmmm.  I'm guessing that this stuff is supposed to be from, say, Madagascar.

I just like the use of the mortar and pestle.  I bet it hearkens back to days of yore, when stout, hardy Swiss peasant folk would hand-crush vanilla and other such plant-type things into homemade skin care products, giving them such a natural, healthy glow that they could pass as TV soap commercial models.

Moving on to the back of the bottle, we get the same logo, followed by "MOISTURIZING BODY WASH", which is - wait a minute! - followed by the words "GEL HYDRATANT POUR LE CORPS".  I bet that means "MOISTURIZING BODY WASH" in a different language!  Well, what do they speak in Switzerland?  I consulted one of my many Books Of Information Only A Huge Nerd Would Want, and discovered that Switzerland has three official languages - German, Italian, and French.  Using a highly sophisticated system of total guesswork, I concluded that that GEL HYRDATANT POUR LE CORPS line was probably French, since I remembered at the last minute that virtually everything is "le something" in France.  But wait!  Where's the German and the Italian?  Where's the Befeuchtend Körperwäsche?  The Il Bucato di Corpo Idratante?  I'm detecting a bit of pro-French prejudice on this bottle.

So I read a bit further down, and I am invited to "Discover the Swiss Secrets for Soft, Smooth Skin," which is supported by the claim that "Over the centuries, the Swiss have developed and perfected their secrets for naturally beautiful skin.  Only St. Ives captures these secrets..."  Man!  Those darn Swiss have the secrets to everything!  Pocketknives, chocolates, cuckoo clocks, protecting the Pope, the finance of shadowy spies/corporations/criminals/ and now skin care!  I say the US put forth its vast military might and capture all this cool stuff for the American people!

I'd vote for a presidential candidate that promised me a Pope-protecting pocketknife made of chocolate.  With a cuckoo clock in it.

Looking farther down the label, under a picture of the same probably-Alps, there's a chart listing the three major secret ingredients of this amazing Swiss skin care product:  "Pure Swiss Glacial Water," "Swiss Botanicals," and "Vitamin E."  I'd like to examine these now, if I may:

- "Pure Swiss Glacial Water":  The label claims that this is "Nature's pure form of moisture."  Hmm.  I thought water was just water, but after a bit of digging about on the Net, I found an old archived interview that the New York Post did with Mother Nature back in 1974 that proves even the Big Tree-Hugger herself likes Pure Swiss Glacial Water above all others ("Helmut!  That old woman's in the backyard again, melting bits off the ornamental garden glacier!"):

NYP:  So you honestly believe that the prosperity of the varying nations of the world is entirely dependent on the quality of their water?

MN:  'Believe?'  Honey, I know so!  I send the water there!  I hid all the best stuff in this little flat spot in the Alps shortly after the end of the last Ice Age.  Who knew you pink monkeys would start a country up there?

NYP:  Then Switzerland's unparalleled history of financial prosperity, longstanding independence, and devotion to political neutrality are all because of the water they put in their soap?

MN:  You bet.  Ever been to Bangladesh?  You wouldn't believe the stuff I dumped there.

NYP:  Isn't Bangladesh's terrible poverty, high mortality rate, and deplorable health care the result of years of religious warfare and the genocide in 1971?  You know, the one where 1.5 million people died?

MN:  Look, who's the personification of Earthly life here, you or me?

Yeah.  Anyway.  Next.

- "Swiss Botanicals":  Hmm.  I know 'botanical' means 'having to do with plants,' so I'm gonna go way out on a limb here and guess they mean plants.  From Switzerland.  According to the bottle, these are 'skin nourishing.'   I dunno - I rubbed crushed herbs and stuff all over myself once, and all I got was attacked by army ants.  Which, come to think of it, messed my skin up pretty badly.

For that matter, how can you nourish skin?  It's not, in point of fact, all that alive.  Actually, not really alive at all.  Okay, it's not ever going to pass as alive.  The layer of human skin that you interact with on a daily basis is a layer of dead protein flakes that your body is waiting to get rid of.  Dead things don't live, and therefore don't eat.  The last time I tried feeding a corpse, I got caught and ended up spending a night or two in a padded room.  Apparently it's okay if the stuff you're feeding the dead thing is from Switzerland.

- "Vitamin E":  They say this is an 'anti-oxidant' and also a 'humectant.'  I don't know what on earth anti-oxidants are.  I know they're supposed to be vital for the health of your liver or spleen or skin or whatever, but I have no idea if they come from leafy green vegetables or florescent lights or 'body washes' or what.

So, we've got this super-amazing Swiss soap stuff with a SWISS FORMULA and SWISS VANILLA and PURE SWISS GLACIAL WATER and SWISS BOTANICALS in it.  Where does St. Ives make this incredible stuff?  Canada.  Says so on the bottle, which probably explains their Francophilia (blast your eyes, Quebec!).  Supposedly the labs ('laboratoires') are in Geneva, Switzerland (Genéve, Suisse), Chicago, Los Angeles, and Toronto.  No wonder they have to stick "SWISS" all over it - otherwise only heaven knows what it would get labeled as.

I'm so glad I'm a man.  I get bonus points if I remember to use soap.