Where Have All the ChapSticks Gone?

America is a culture built upon a slippery slope. We are a people of the addiction, for the addiction, by the addiction.

Just think about it: Alcoholics. Overeaters. Smokers. Druggies. Sex addicts. Potheads.

If there is a commodity, we will - undoubtedly - abuse it.

But there is one addiction that I fear does not get anywhere near enough attention from the media.
Chapstick.

Seriously. There are two types of people in the world - those who are addicted to Chapstick and those who will break out the Blistex only on the driest of wintry days. Only when it’s ten degrees below and their lips are cracking and bleeding and they’re on a chairlift heading up a mountain.
I, unfortunately, belong to the former group of people - the abusers. (And let me just say that it has NOTHING to do with Katy Perry and her stupid Cherry Chapstick.)

Yep, I have an asticktion. My name is Katie and I'm a ChapStickaholic.

If there is not a stick or a pot or a tube in sight, I pace around like a heroin addict waiting for my fix.
The more anxious I become about my lack of chap, the redder my lips get. They scream and burn with hatred over their owners’ stupidity. I have to resort to licking them as consolation which really only exacerbates their chapped-ness.

I’ve been an addict for as long as I can remember. I don’t remember how it started. But either you’re a member of that club or you aren’t. So many people I know never need that stick-o-crack. But for me - well, there’s just no escaping Burt’s vise (such a vice!)

I don’t particularly mind being a lip balm junkie. Unless it’s one of those rare occasions when I’ve changed bags and forgot - the horror - to throw one in.

Really, though, I’m usually quite good about remembering my chapstick. I’d give myself an A- (and that’s pretty amazing considering my forgetfulness). Before I leave my apartment, my mental checklist is something like: purse, chapstick, phone, keys.

Oh yeah, it’s numero dos on my list de importantes.

That’s why it’s so difficult to understand why I have such a poor track record with my sticks and pots and tubes-o-lube. It’s so unfair. Where do they all go???

It’s like that book The Velveteen Rabbit except all the chapsticks in my apartment come alive while I’m asleep and party the night away in true NYC style, hiding themselves by morning. 


Does anyone else have this problem?

I collect chapstick. Let’s see (now this does NOT include lipgloss or lipstick, otherwise we’d be here for hours...oh, and yes, this is my actual lip-stuff drawer. Don’t judge).
 
Four Smith’s Rosebud Salves (two orig, one bramble, one minted). Two Perfumeria Gals. Three Blistex Lip Medex. Two Kiss My Faces. One Banana Republic. One Badger Balm. Four ChapSticks (hate the ones with sunscreen but apparently I’ve got two of them). Some random Aquafina brand kind. Five Burt’s Bees. Bored? OK...I’ll stop there.

I even have a pink Labello chapstick I bought in Rome my Sophomore year of college.

The messed up thing, in my opinion, is not the fact that I have a ridiculous number of lip balms. It’s that I can never seem to find one when I’m in need. Don’t think I’m crazy or anything - even if I did just list all the ones I currently have in my drawer.

You see, like any other addict, I have a preference. A favorito. If you’re a Bud drinker, you’re not really gonna enjoy drinking a Coors Light, now, are you?

My drug of choice is Burt’s Bees.
But maybe I need to start treating my cute yellow tubes with more

R-E-S-P-E-C-T cause seriously, I have never finished one in its entirety.

It’s nuts! They just disappear on me.

Damn you chapstick and your stupid magic disappearing acts.

(Let the record show that after writing this, I cleaned under my bed/couch/butcher block and found three chapsticks in hiding. Makes me wonder. Maybe it’s not the chapstick that’s evil, but rather the apartment...

...spoken like a true addict: Everyone’s lookin’ for someone to blame.)