What’s a dame like you doing in a joint like this?

“Dame,” not lady, not girl, is the word. I like it.
No one uses it anymore, I regret, save to describe such venerable battleships as
Thatcher and Dubya’s mama.

The dame did
it, not the butler. The dame wore a cute piece in a thigh holster. (Strapped
over fishnet, of course.) The dame’s shoulder pads could cut glass. Think
Michael (not Michelle) Tree, she of Ms. Tree’s
Thrilling Detective Adventures.

I spotted the dame (and her cohorts)
sitting in a chintz-lined tray in one of the bric-a-brac shops off Evangelista
Street, one lunch break out with Joel. She was, in truth, a bottle of Carven’s
Ma Griffe, still boxed, but already opened.

Ma Griffe is a fresh chypre, although I
would describe it more like a dark green floral. This is a fragrance with
shoulder pads, brisk and decisive. I spritzed my find on my wrist and stopped
wilting in the heat. Suddenly, I had a backbone.
Excellent.

Beside Ma Griffe were two
other dusty gems: an original EDT of Fracas by Roger Piguet, and Carthusia Fiori
di Capri. Fracas is the tuba of tuberoses, and it is an assault of femininity,
rather like Madonna in that Gaultier bustier, or Aphrodite A. Fiori di Capri is
probably as near as I’ll ever get to Capri, and fittingly enough, it is a
romantic floral.

I had originally gone
to Evangelista to find a desk stand for a pen. This is one good thing about
multiple obsessions: if you can’t satisfy one, the other can step in to save
your lunch break.