Cracking up

There is no snow, but it is cold here, and this has led my already dry skin to pull back and shrink in an attempt to avoid this dehydrated mountain air. My hands have not been this parched since winter in 5th grade when I walked to school every morning and Santa Barbara actually had frost on the ground and I had not yet discovered the joy of lotion, so my knuckles cracked and started bleeding. I remember my mother’s wisdom then and tried to replicate it last night- slather your hands in Vaseline before bed, cover with gloves and wake up to moisturized, smooth skin.

So I bought some thin cotton gloves from Albertsons and last night we made our way to Wal-mart for Vaseline (ok, petroleum jelly because I’m cheap and the non-name brand was only 93 cents). I know that every time you shop at Wal-mart you are depriving a child in Georgia of his health insurance, but Albertsons here is frequently out of your everyday toiletries, and they lock up their condoms to make it even harder and more embarrassing for teenagers here to practice safe sex (which leads to New Mexico’s position as the state with the highest percentage of children born to teenage mothers in 2004, and this is why I am good at Trivial Pursuit) so I wasn’t surprised that they didn’t have Vaseline. So I put on the goo and the gloves, and woke up to skin like a baby’s. I am telling you, they should have tricks like this on a card that says, “Welcome to New Mexico. Do these things to make life here less uncomfortable.”