Day 43 of Being Stranded in Sephora: A Boyfriends Journey
I will never forget the day it began. My girlfriend said she just needed to “pop in real quick to restock her brow gel,” which I foolishly believed was a two-minute errand. Looking back it felt like Odysseus setting sail for Troy, unaware of the harrowing journey to come.
Somewhere between the hydrating serums and intensely hydrating serums, she disappeared like a cloud of setting spray. I wandered toward the fragrance wall and haven’t seen her since. I’ve called her name. I considered texting but couldn’t find the words, the intoxication of the perfume samples has short-circuited my mental dexterity. I even briefly considered approaching a staff member, but they move too fast and speak only of strange things. How the hell am I supposed to know what a jade roller is?
My phone died around Day 3. I attempted to mark the days by drawing tally marks on a testing mirror with Fenty Lipstick but they’ve since been rubbed out by an associate with a hair color I’ve never seen on the outside. The foreign symbols must scare them. It’s as if Plato’s cave smelled like Jasmine and dry shampoo.
I’ve built a small shelter near the travel-sized products. It’s not much, but the cotton wipes make for decent insulation, and I’ve fashioned a rudimentary pillow out of unused beauty blenders. I have been keeping myself warm by starting fires with fragrance test strips.
Food has been scarce. I’ve been subsisting mostly on cherry-scented lip balm and the occasional edible shimmer gloss. I drink from a tester bottle labeled “ocean mist,” which I’m fairly certain is both alcohol-based and technically a body spray. It burns and I am dehydrated, but I smell fabulous.
I’ve begun to see others like me, eyes ragged, some holding a purse so long they have forgotten who it belongs to. Men pacing the aisles with haunted eyes and backwards hats. Nobody can figure out how to navigate this place, we are all scared.
It was hard for me to speak to other males, but we eventually formed a tribe. We fashioned spears out of cuticle pushers to fend off potential predators. It helped to share stories, to split a watermelon-scented lip liner for sustenance. But I had to leave after I discovered they thought Jordan was better than Lebron, savages. So I set out again to find my girlfriend and leave the other castaways aside after 15 days together battling the elements and fighting death side by side. I never got anyone’s name.
I’ve started questioning what’s real. Did I ever exist before this place? Was there truly a world where I didn’t know what a Gua Sha stone was?
And then there she was. My girlfriend whose name I’d now forgotten. She appeared from behind the Benefit counter holding a single item. “You ready?” she said, as if I hadn’t aged emotionally and spiritually when she left me to brave the elements.
I fell to my knees, ready to tell her everything and hold her once more. I soon checked the time and realized: it had actually been eleven minutes since we got here.
I was vexed when she began questioning me after my arduous voyage into the unknown. Apparently, I am being over dramatic which is ridiculous. Did Penelope accuse Odysseus of being over dramatic after something eerily similar happened to him? Surely not.
I am looking forward to life on the outside again. Now that I am out, I notice the smells lack a certain zest and I can see when someone hasn’t blended their foundation down to their neck properly.
Will I ever be the same again? Will I learn to live on the outside? Will I ever get the smell of Taylor Swift’s Wonderstruck out of my nasal cavity?
Only time will tell.
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Connor Adams is a writer and television professional living in New York City. He is from New Jersey and has performed stand up all over the tri-state area and he loves you very much. His writing can be seen on Points In Case, Greener Pastures and Robot Butt.
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