Time to Join AA?!

Hello.

My name is Jeremiah Graves.

…and I’m an AXEaholic.

Okay…so I don’t know if AXEaholics Anonymous actually exists or not, but if it does, there’s no doubt I should be penciling weekly meetings into my oh-so-busy social calendar, because I am a habitual abuser of the oft-mocked man-stink.

My first hit of AXE came innocently enough.

It was in the summer of 2002 and I was wandering the aisles of Wal-Mart loading up on necessities for college. You know, the usual stuff that most college freshmen find themselves forced to purchase for the first-time in their lives: shampoo, soap, deodorant and new-to-the-American-market body sprays for dudes.

You see up until I got hooked on AXE, I had been content smelling like one of three things:

a) my natural scent…which was some combination of my parent’s smoky house, pizza dough and the vanilla air-freshener I kept in my car

b) the Bod Man spray that my grandma bought me every year for Christmas despite my blatant eye-rolling every time I’d unwrap it

c) a can of Brut spray deodorant that I found in my Grandma’s attic while putting siding on her house during summer break

But then came that first whiff of AXE. It smelled like the ultimate mixture of awesome and bad-ass, rolled together in one pressurized can. So I purchased the can and soon after became a chronic AXErizer.

Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t hooked on AXE because all the other douche-bags were doing it or because of the commercials showing random geeky dudes hooking up with a gaggle of mega-hotties. No, no…it was because I preferred not to smell like any of the aforementioned scents.

Within a few years of my first spray, (in an attempt to best new-comer to the body spray world, TAG) the folks at AXE blessed me–and the rest of the world–by introducing a line of deodorants and, soon after, a whole slew of body washes and shower gels. As one might expect, I gobbled these things up quicker than Lindsay Lohan would a bottle of Xanax.

As a result, I’ve reeked of awesomeness for years thinking that the people at AXE could do no more right than they had already done for the citizens of earth. I’ve found that most people genuinely approve of my AXE-fortified odiferousness, however, there are those that I’ve hurt and I think as one of my AA steps…I should use this public forum to apologize to them.

John Kunkel, I want to apologize to you for wearing AXE even though it makes you go crazier than the folks in “Reefer Madness.” Grace Mlady and Jackie Partyka, I want to apologize to the two of you for having to suck-down the fumes when I’d unleash the initial blasts of AXE every morning before work. I know you two suffered a lot, but to this day neither of you can argue that it smelled anything but glorious after the fragrant-fog had cleared.

I also want to give, not so much an apology, but a shout-out to the Dewey Chicks for being the only two gals who constantly call me out with their abilities to always sniff a vestige of the all-mighty AXE, no matter how diluted it may have become throughout the day.

Now that I’ve taken care of that step in the recovery process, it is time I alert you all to what is yet to come.

In December, just before Christmas I was purchasing some AXE gift packs at Walgreens when I made a glorious discovery. For the uninitiated AXE gift packs are the greatest thing in the world. You get numerous AXE products for like $10. We’re talking about the body spray, the deodorant and some shower goo (and often some small samples of other stuff) for just a ten dollar bill!! That’s darn near twenty dollars worth of man-stink for half the regular price. Good times.

Anyway, back to the point, so I was gathering myself a little gift pack action when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was resting comfortably on an end of the aisle display. It was a plethora of small two ounce sample bottles of a new product…AXE shampoo!!

That’s right, the fine folks at AXE were out to prove they could, in fact, outdo themselves by releasing a brand new line of hair-care products that included not only shampoos and conditioners but a whole horde of styling products as well.

I was absolutely enthralled by this discovery. It was finally possible for me to smell like a douche-bag frat boy from head-to-toe!! Which may sound like either sarcasm or some sort of misguided thought process, but let’s be honest when you’ve been wearing a product like AXE for as long as I have…you sorta just reach a point where you quit trying to fight the stereotype and give up using the “I was using it before it was popular” excuse and you just roll deal with being pigeonholed.

As I’ve been writing, I can’t help but feel like I’m making a mistake. Yes…yes I am.

I gotta be honest folks, even though I’ve got an AXE-addiction and I clearly need some sort of help…I don’t want it. Once I encountered these glorious hair-care products I realized that AXE isn’t bad. And hell, if it is I don’t want to be right. Plus, I know that I can quit AXE whenever I want.

Granted, I don’t want to quit AXE. I’m far more likely to join the AARP (AXEaholic And Really Proud) than the AA right now.

In reality, I’m just waiting for AXE to branch out into toothpaste, contact lens solution and eventually–Jebus and Chuck Norris willing–toilet paper.

Yeah, that’ll be pleasant.