We get business and banking trade magazines at work, which are circulated throughout the office. Titles including Nashville Business Journal, Nashville Post, ABA Bank Marketing Magazine and Independent Banker routinely land on my desk and I actually read them. Sometimes they are a little beyond my scope of work or interest, but there is almost always something in each magazine to catch my eye.
Oftentimes, the articles I enjoy are about using social media to promote business, new businesses opening, customer relationship management or successful bank marketing campaigns from around the country. I always scan the photos and mentally critique the men in them. Once in a great while, the critique is along the line of “Dang, he’s hot. That beautifully tailored suit really brings out his gray hair. Oh, crap, he’s wearing a wedding ring.” Unfortunately, it’s more like “Eww.... did this guy not know he was having his picture taken for this article? What’s with the clown hair?” Yes, I know ... I probably shouldn’t be reading a business magazine like it’s the match.com listings, but hey, I’m single and drowning in a sea of couples. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Just as New Yorkers were reported to read the obituaries looking for apartment openings and I read them in search of new job openings, this is just a natural, less morbid extension of the process.
In my overactive inner life, if and when I see a photo of a hot businessman or banker in a nicely tailored suit and it’s not mentioned that he’s married, I would drop him a brief, professional note commenting on his brilliant quote in the article, we begin corresponding, and soon, we live happily ever after. It could happen! I had a coworker once who met her handsome and amazing husband when he was an expert witness in a case she was trying. My cousin made a wish on her birthday cake and that very same night her wish was granted when she literally bumped into the handsome Scotsman who would become her husband! See! Real life examples of happily ever after. Unfortunately, in six years of reading the magazines at work, I’ve not yet seen one banker or businessman I found attractive enough to take out my pen and get busy, so I can’t even execute the first step of my fantastical plan. But it doesn’t stop me from hoping.
Today, there was something in the ABA Bank Marketing Magazine that caught my eye. Two things actually. One was an article by Robert Hall on relationships in our increasingly technology driven world that fosters fewer reasons to leave the house (I need the book -- “This Land of Strangers”). The other was a brief article about a new cologne. Yes, cologne. In a banking magazine. It’s a cologne called Money, comes in His and Her versions, packed in a box with shredded US currency. It claims to smell like freshly minted cash. So, it’s possible to look like money, smell like money and really and truly be SO MONEY! Even the website name is inspiring ... www.liquidmoney.com.
I want this. I need this. I couldn’t wait to get home and check how much money it takes to smell like money (just $42.50! Subtle hint ... my birthday is in one month). This could kickstart the other fantasy that runs through my head ... the one where I meet my personalized version of Prince Charming Mr. Right in the seat next to me on an airplane, while standing in line at a coffee shop or when reaching for the perfect avocado in the produce department of the local grocery store. This fantasy is the reason I rarely leave the house without makeup. One never knows. I already told you about two real life instances of which I am personally acquainted.
Smelling like Money!!! Maybe that’s the golden ticket to attracting a guy who at least owns a nice suit, but more likely, I will attract the panhandler on the street who is in desperate need of money. But which version do I get? If and when I remember to bother to spritz on cologne, it’s Armani for Men, because most women’s fragrances smell too powdery or flowery and make me gag. There is no point grossing myself out with cologne, as there are enough reeking ladies running around the ‘Ville handling the task for me.
I checked the list of “resellers” on the Money website, hoping to test drive “The Fragrance of Success” which includes “the distinct note of fresh, crisp bills” (Her Money) or “the unique aroma of newly-printed bills” (His Money). Sadly, the only Tennessee reseller is, of all places, “The Cowboy Store” in some town called Huntingdon that I’ve never heard of before. Interestingly, many of the reseller names contain the words “Western” and “Cowboy” with Oklahoma and Texas having the most resellers. The smell of money will be heavy in the air over the oil well states. Strangely, the giant state of California has only two resellers, and Massachusetts and New York have none. Asia is listed with just one reseller in the entire region. Europe has one in Lithuania and England has just a website listed. Perhaps the answer is to boost my own money by becoming a reseller in one of the unrepresented areas ... Hmmmm.
Maybe I should tell my father about this cologne. When we were little kids and would complain about the eau de poo poo smell of the dairy farms nearby, my dad would always exclaim, "It smells like money to me!"
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