The Supermarket That Time Forgot

When A. was in law school, we drove many times between Albany and Blackrock for holidays and so forth, rocking out to whatever was on the radio, because my car was not equipped with anything so fancy as a CD player. We used to joke that we could always tell when we had entered A.'s home county because Metallica would be on the radio.

A. explained that rural upstate New York was always about twenty years behind the rest of America when it came to popular culture. Hence the popularity of professional wrestling when he was in high school in the mid-1990s and the ubiquitousness of Metallica on the radio well into the 21st century.

I was reminded of this when I went to the very small supermarket in the next village over this morning.

I needed some mousse for my hair*. I've been using Pantene for, oh, about fifteen years now, because I am nothing if not a creature of habit. That particular brand of mousse is not available at this very small supermarket, however. So my options were Suave, a relatively common brand; Herbal Essences, which brought me right back to the 1990s and those ridiculous shower commercials for Herbal Essences; and . . . White Rain.

White Rain? I didn't even know they still made White Rain. Does that not just scream 1980s to you? (Yes. Exhibit A.)

Welcome to upstate New York, where Metallica will never leave the airwaves and White Rain is still sold at your local store.

(I bought the Suave. I just couldn't bring myself to step so far back in time as to buy the White Rain.)

* The secret to my obviously carefully styled curls? Mousse and hairspray. Fancy, yes.