Vitalis Christmas

 Vitalis Christmas



     A story unproven over sixty years past but often giving laughs to my old buddy Greg as we reminisced over Yuletide fails. My brother was a newlywed and exited about his new life and wife who was close to the old holiday classic Scrooge in her giving attitudes. He had little money and at the last minute he claimed he was in a Department store ready to buy fine gifts for the family and his wallet was stolen. He swears on his atheist creed this is true but we all had some doubts about the veracity of this version of his light wallet. In those days it was just Mom, Dad, me, Cheryl and Christine to buy for since none of us had produced any g-kids. What big brother did do close to the big night was to go down to the Sav-On Drug store on Tweedy boulevard and buy some gifts totalling out at about five bucks. Christine who was a kid got a plastic poodle on wheels, Mom got a canned fruitcake (she hated fruitcake) and I got a small bottle of Vitalis hairdressing. Vitalis means "life-giving" in latin but in hair products it means oily hair that will not move in a stiff wind. It had a pungent smell and some boys were using the stuff on their approved hair-do's at Pius during my three years there. For some reason it was full of alcohol and apparently some soldiers drank the stuff in WWII when no alcohold was available. The magic ingredient was something called V-7 which was never revealed. Brother meekly apologized when the gifts were opened and I found it humoruous to see the look on their faces not wanting him to feel bad about his bad fortune in the Bullocks store. 



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