I just did something reckless

I spent $200 on soap.

Wait, let me explain.

I love (madly, to all evidence) L’Occitane’s lavender savon de Marseille–you know, the big blocks with the crushed lavender flowers and seeds. They’re 750 grams of the most amazingly scented lavender soap goodness, efffver. Seriously, the scent is more woody than floral, elegantly masculine without making the effort of being butch. The scent intoxicates me.

Clearly.

The soap (O delight!) has been discontinued (Woe!). L’Occitane boutiques no longer carry it, and the company has no plans on producing any more of it. All of the San Francisco stores have been out of it for months, to my dismay, and I was recently reduced to buying tiny little bars of guest soaps (which they’re still carrying, apparently) as a sop to my love of lavender saponification. I finally emailed the company about it, and they suggested that I call their outlet store in Las Vegas. If they had any left at all, it would be there.

I want to reiterate that I love this soap, and that my dismay at its discontinuance is real, albeit more than a little unhinged.

Which is my explanation for why I just bought all the blocks that the L’Occitane outlet store had remaining in stock.

I was only going to order 10 of them. Then the sales associate mentioned that the outlet price was less than the retail price, so it was an excellent price for awesome, quality savon de Marseille. So I ordered 15, because hell, shipping’s free on purchases over $80. Then I asked, how many blocks are there in stock? Twenty, she replied. At which point, I knew that I might as well buy them all.

I knew that I would regret not doing so. I knew that as absurd as it is to lament your favorite brand of soap going out of production, I would regret not stocking up when I had the chance. I love that soap, and every day, there’s just a little less of it.

If memory serves, each block is 750 grams. That’s 1.65 lbs. There are 20 of them. That’s 15 kilos. That’s 33 pounds of soap.

Do you see my insanity? Is it perfectly clear?

Each block lasts me two to three months, possibly longer, since I use it as a supplement to my regular soap. It’s my I-want-to-feel-special soap. (Yes, I have an I-want-to-feel-special soap. What of it?) That means that with rationing, I have enough soap to last me the next four to five years.

At which point I’ll probably do something even more reckless, like fly to Marseille and wander the streets, looking to score my lavender hit.

Apparently, I’m mad enough. It’s not a possibility I can discount. I mean, I just spent $200 on soap.

Addendum for posterity (added much later): Turns out I misremembered, and the cubes are 350 grams, not 750. So that’s only about 15 lbs., not 33. Probably still just as crazy, though.