I swore off Tommy Girl because the scent caused me great humiliation?romantic humiliation?my sophomore year of high school. It was during the last 10 minutes of a varsity basketball game at my school when the embarrassing incident took place. Knowing that my Romantic Interest had left the gym for a Sprite, I made the stragetic decision to walk across the gym floor, towards the girls’ bathroom?the intersection was precise. Midfloor we stopped and began to talk, a little too quickly, about our romantic situation. We had broken up a month or so prior after dating awkwardly for three weeks.
He was telling me that I was “the marrying type.” In fact, he advised that I date no one else during the remaining two years of high school, study hard (“you’re smart”), go to Harvard, meet a nice guy who wears wire-rimmed glasses and collects Flemish art, marry him and lead a happy life.
I was offended by this prediction. For one, it sounded as rehearsed as the Demi Moore “jurisdiction” speech in A Few Good Men. Second, when he said Flemish art, I thought he meant modern art resembling phlegm, snot, or bile on a canvas. Did he think I would really fall for someone who would so pitifully masquerade as having good taste in art? I thought better of my future than his little fortune predicted. I wrinkled my nose at him, showing my disgust. Quickly, I tried to turn the conversation toward my ideas about romance and life.
I waxed philosophical to him about living in the present. I dropped the lyrics “forget, regret,” tossing in a self-conscious “have you seen Rent, the musical?” I was spinning with romantic enthusiasm. I wanted him to realize that his boring assumptions about my life were wickedly wrong?I wanted us to toss Harvard out the door together in the name of something more romantic and immediately satisfying.
Romantic Interest was looking at me with a furrowed brow?he seemed slightly puzzled. Was he breaking? Was he losing those wits I had tried to shoo away time and again? I was sitting at the edge of my world. He opened his mouth to speak. What is it, bright angel?
“Are you wearing Tommy Girl?”
Caught. Found out. Totally screwed. He had recognized my perfume. He had pointed out in a single comment exactly what was common, trite and predictable about me. I knew that if I answered yes to this question, he would likewise confirm all other held assumptions about me. My pride was in my handbag. My shame was on my shirt. Denial was all I had left to shake in his face?so I shook it with all my might.
“No ? this is not Tommy Girl. Nope. No it is not. Nope.”
I could have really clinched the deal with “Ha, you are wrong, Mr. Smarty Pants,” but eloquence comes from confidence, and mine had been taken away just moments before. I had been pegged, first as the marrying type, and second as a Tommy Girl type. I was a type not once, but twice over.
When I went home that night, I put the Tommy bottle on the shelf of discarded items, the closeted home to the family freezone from ‘87 and the various coral lipsticks from my sister’s prom years. As swiftly as Romantic Interest had just shelved me, I shelved Tommy Girl.
For the last couple years I’ve been doing OK for myself. I’ve been wearing a scent whose name I need not mention here, but mind you, it is tasteful and obscure. With no humiliating experiences, my pefume courage has slowly regained its strength. Recently this strength was called to action when I saw the commercial for T, by Tommy Hilfiger. It’s his newest scent. The commercial spoke to me. It celebrated denim miniskirts and featured 20-somethings rolling around in the grass like young pups. It was so thrilling, and I need a new scent. I would have run right out to buy a bottle, but my memory awoke my caution. After considering the dilemma seriously, I decided that it’s important to be forgiving of past loves, right? Tommy included. I am not afraid and I will not be afraid. So to all you smarty-pants sniffers out there?you can try and peg me down if you want, but you’ll be wasting your energy. Why? Because I’m turning myself in now. I’m confessing before I can be accused: Yes, I am a perfume wearer. Yes, I’ll probably get married. And in case you happen to see me around this semester, after I’ve hit the Bloomingdales in Westchester, N.Y., I’d like to disclose my official statement here and now: I am wearing T, the newest Hilfiger scent. You got a problem?
