Review: Avon Advanced Techniques Volumizing Mousse for Fine Hair
warning! this product review contains animal testing!
The night before last I woke up at two in the morning because my dog was whining and scratching at the wall. Now, my dog is known for her neuroses, but this was new and disturbing behavior. I sat up and stared, let my eyes adjust to dim light, but she continued to scratch and whine. And then I heard it. A strange loud gnawing sound coming from the wall behind my open door. A rat. A BIG rat, too, the way that sucker was scritching and scratching against my internal two-by-fours.
Tree rats are the scourge of my coastal town. They live in the tall palms, fat, content, nesting, and sneak down tree at night to forage the gardens and garbage of the rich and poor alike. Everyone's got 'em. I don't care if you live in a rock-lined castle on Skyline Drive or a small apartment in the barrio, you've got rats. Several companies work the rat problem in my area, setting traps in attics and returning once a week to retrieve rotting carcasses. And I thought Avon was difficult work.
I shushed my dog and shoved her outside. I didn't want to wake my boys. And I sat on the edge of the bed with my head in my hands, pondering my options. I could wait until morning to deal with the rat. I could dig through the garage and find the old rat traps I kept in a box for just such an emergency. I could call one of those Rat Emergency Men and report an infestation. And as I sat and thought and listened, the rat grew louder and louder, almost thumping against the wall. I knew I could not sleep. Images of the rat finding a way inside the body of the house and nipping at my sleeping toes washed into my vision and I stood up and declared war.
I searched through the garage in vain. I shone a dim flashlight into every box in my garage but no rat traps. Damn. And then I spied it - the pepper spray swinging from a plastic holder on my beach cruiser bike. I could stun the rat! And shove him in a box! I grabbed one of a hundred empty Avon boxes piled in stacks by the garage door and the pepper spray. I pushed down on the spray switch, testing the trigger, and Hsssssssss. Nothing blew the space but stale air and one gray flake of desiccated pepper madness. Crap. I had to figure out a new option.
I tiptoed back through the house with my box and set it on the floor under the attic access outside my bedroom. The rat continued feasting and nesting, a hearty claw claw claw against wood-grain, then a running in circles pattern, rinse, repeat. I looked around my bedroom for a good weapon. Books, banjo, pillows, nothing seemed safe or rodent-worthy. I looked in the bathroom, too, for good measure, and grabbed the one item that might do the trick - my Avon Advanced Techniques Volumizing Mousse for Fine Hair. I opened the hatch and pulled down the miniature latter and tossed the box in, following close behind.
The attic was dirty and dark. I held the mousse in front of me like a stun gun and crouched as quietly as I could, listening for my intruder. I heard him gnaw and arrange, gnaw and arrange, only twenty feet to my left and three feet down. I pushed the box across the floor of the attic and kept the mousse at hand. The gnawing stopped. I stood still, waited, held my breath. And then BAM! The rat scurried up a hole in the floor and toward me! I screamed! I squeezed the mousse trigger and an arc of heavy foam hit the air, flew, fell, right on top of Mr. Rat! I screamed again, watched the rat flail against the floor, rubbing one arm against his face to clear the sticky material. I slammed the box open side down right over his body and sat on the box, breathing heavy, listening to my boys jump from bed yelling Mom! Mom! Mom!
I called 17 to climb the stairs and sit on the rat box while I looked for a good piece of plywood to slip underneath, and we carefully carried the Arc of the Covenant out of the attic, out of the house, upside-down box on four feet of plywood. We carried it all the way through the night to my cranky neighbor's house three houses down the street and my boys ran for cover. I grabbed one point of the box, angling my feet to run for home, lifted the box and zoomed the h-e-double-toothpicks outta there. The rat ran for cover, hopefully my neighbor's bed, and I collected the box and board and walked home.
I'd have to be honest and say that the Avon mousse didn't do a thing for that rat's hair. But perhaps today he is re-groomed and gnawing on new furniture, sleek, shiny, and full of volumizing body.
11:49:49 AM 
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