Oh, you don't wear lotion?

I have to post on this topic because, as of late, I've been shocked by the things I've been hearing come out of people's mouths. Usually I'm too busy trying to talk myself off the ledge as the elevator approaches my floor at work, but in the event that I focus on what's going on around me, I overhear some choice conversations.

One of my favorites:

guy: "hey, uh, what happened to your thumb?" (looking at the band aid on girl's hand)
girl: (staring at her thumb with perplexed expression) "I'm not sure . . . you know when your skin gets so dry that it cracks and bleeds?"
guy: "ugh, i hate that!"
girl: "i mean, me too. so now I'm, like, using this moisturizer, but, like, its like so sticky"
guy: "really? yeah, so, you like put it all over your body?"

At this point, I almost die. Literally. I forgo any sort of home training and unabashedly stare at these two fools. Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? You mean to tell me that your skin is so dry that it cracks and bleeds? And you accept that? And lotion is sticky? No homie, lotion is not sticky. Lotion is a God-send. Lotion makes my world go round. Honestly, I can't imagine life without it.

And before you think that this is an isolated incident, its not. Yes, black people, I know that we will always have lotion in our homes, even before we have toilet paper, or even electricity. Quietly, I think that we are fueling the lotion industry singlehandedly (black women are actually the number 1 consumers of baby oil, which leads to my next story). I remember once in college, strolling down to the commissary in high rise north, freshly bathed and oiled, looking as shiny as I wanted to look. I walk by these two typical Penn girls, with their Herve Chapelier bags and Northface fleeces. As I pass, one of them freezes, and sniffs the air. "Omigod, Amy, do you like, smell a baby or something?" No, Amy, you don't smell a baby. You smell the comfort of freshly lotioned skin. Doesn't it smell comfortable?

Another time, I'm sitting in a meeting with the faculty advisor to a group that I led. In the middle of talking about relevant ish, this woman stops and is like "Your skin always looks so soft. Can I touch it?" So even though I felt like a zoo animal, I let her run her hand over the silky goodness that is my arm. "Wow, what do you do to it?", she asks. "Umm, put on lotion" I reply. "What, like every day?" I nod. "All over your body?". I nod again, and look at her like shes crazy. Her final question, which went unanswered by yours truly: "I mean, doesn't it like leave grease marks on your clothes?"

When people say things like that, or talk about how their skin is cracked and bleeding, or talk about how today they put "moisturizer" (always the telltale sign of a non-lotioner-- non-ashys refer to it as 'lotion') all over their body today, and how sticky it feels, I want to lean in and whisper "hey, I have a secret . . ."

Actually, no, I don't want to tell them anything. I want to be like "oh, you don't use lotion?", then pause, give them the 'stop playing' look and be like, "oh, you don't use lotion? You don't need lotion? You just pull your pants up over your ashy legs and keep it moving?"

Well okay then. Peace be with you.