The stars are clearing
When I wrote this, i wasn’t 100% sure that Avon was an international thing. So I looked it up and it is. Avon don’t call like they used to, mind. I have to get all my slap and stinks from Superdrug now.
Bad Machinery
New comics by John Allison
Is it Jonesy
I hope it’s Jonesy
Tim was my guess
Soon, my knowledge of what an Avon lady is will join my ability to operate a rotary telephone or work a TV from antenna as quaint curiosities of the past, mocked by roving packs of feral zoomers.
Right there with ya, Andrew.
Esteemed Author — for a while this past winter I was erroneously getting emails in Ukrainian from Avon; from the Google translations I gathered that they had somehow associated my email address with that of a newly launched Avon Lady (aka MLM pawn) in that country. The bizzareness of this continues to haunt me. “I’m sorry, I was unable to deliver your Skin So Soft bath oil because your apartment building was destroyed in the recent bombing.”
I had no trouble understanding the reference to Avon, but I’m, you know, an old person.
John, did you have inside information about Oasis?
*Ding, dong* “Avon lady!”
Yeah, I’m old.
Avon Calling was an early song draft by The Clash, with more lyrics about Shakespeare than the song they eventually released.
No, no, no. Avon Calling was a spin-off series from Blake’s 7. Paul Darrow reprised his role as he flies from planet to planet searching for the formula that will allow him to display emotions. Orac has a cameo role as the doorbell.
I interpreted that last panel as an Edward Scissorhands reference, but maybe Avon is too general for that to be the case.
Never seen it, Tom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exNuX9vkWtY
Dianne Wiest!
Avon calling to the upstairs dorm room
Shelley’s worried about the noises of doom
Avon calling on the lad in 3A
Come out of your dorm room, Shelley would say
Avon calling haunted skinny boy
Phony Freddiemania’s history’s destroyed
Avon calling, with a ginger ninja
It’s either this or studying law
The stars are clearing, the breath’s coming back
Endurance affected, don’t smoke another pack
Better start running, while Oasis still sings
‘Cause Avon is coming, and this… this can’t be happening
Avon calling, but not on the phone
Forget it, Shelley, you can go it alone
Avon calling, a not-yet-zombie lass
Though Andy left, ’cause he’s just an ass
Avon calling and I don’t want to pout
But while we were talking I heard you acting out
Avon calling, we’ll see who replies
To the red-headed girl with green goo-goo eyes
The stars are clearing, the breath’s coming back
Better start running, not smoke another pack
A nineties era, while Oasis still sings
‘Cause Avon is coming, and this… this can’t be happening
Avon calling, Andy was there too
Except then he left, just wanted to grope Shelley’s boob
Avon calling at the top of the stairs
After the climb, Shelley just shows that she cares
Avon calling
Brilliant.
When she knocks on your front door
How you gonna come
With your hands on your head
‘Cause your day’s not any fun
When Shelly breaks in
How you gonna go?
Drawn up on some parchment
Or sketched on digitol
Shelly’s goo-goo eyes in the last panel will be deadly to any male life form in 3A.
Shelly’s goo-goo eyes are indeed a formidable superpower, in the same class as Lottie’s J’Acuse!
I recall she once demonstrated them for Tim Jones(?) as the reason why Len would never fire her?
I think that was her boo-boo eyes, not her goo-goo eyes. Different tools for different jobs.
How many eyes does she have?
Goo-goo eyes are for getting into trouble, and boo-boo eyes are for getting out of it.
Shelley always has the best openers.
I owe my knowledge of Avon Ladies to Suzanne Vega.
https://anecdotage.com/anecdotes/when-suzanne-vega-was-an-avon-lady
I was a 14-year-old door-to-door Regal Gift Catalogue sales representative. In case that sounds vaguely adorable, be assured the good people of Blackburn Hamlet were as immune to that as they were to the charms of my greeting card samples.
And I *think* my mom sold Avon very briefly. I seem to remember it wasn’t nearly as raw a deal as Amway and its ilk, and didn’t have the same pyramiddy odor.
My only point of reference for Avon is Edward Scissorhands. Always wondered if it was a real thing.
Now I REALLY feel old.
It is certain that Andy does not study law with the goal of helping people.
The Avon lady is the alter ego of the Man from the PRU. Handbag or briefcase.
When I was a kid, my mom sold Avon (USA). Through her, I knew the local Avon District Representative/Super Seller/Distributor. This woman was an Avon selling MACHINE. She had all the catalogs, all the special offers. She made so much selling Avon, she could afford to keep the trunk (aka “boot”) of her car STUFFED with her customers’ regular orders and sell it on the spot rather than take catalog orders.
Which was fine and good until the day someone rear-ended her car at a stoplight. >.<
She cleaned it as best she could, but for months after, you couldn't get in that car without your being blinded by the fumes of a dozen different "slaps and stinks" as you put it.
I love this Avon deep dive, thank you Misha.
(Also, to the this day, the original formulation of Avon “Skin So Soft” oil is the best mosquito repellent. Ironically, it worked even better than the Avon Skin So Soft mosquito repellent formula they came out with later.)
Urban legend, perpetuated by social media & soft news segments on the telly.
“Products containing DEET repelled best, and the more DEET they contained, the better they worked. Off! Deep Woods, which contains 23.8 percent DEET, provided the longest-lasting protection: 302 minutes on average. By contrast, Avon Skin-So-Soft Bath Oil failed after 9.6 minutes, on average.” (SNOPES)
Don’t know what to tell you, except that I spent a whole lot of time on and along rivers in Alabama summers with a light spray of that stuff and never got bothered, while people around me were constantly swatting.
Maybe I’m just one of those lucky immune folks. Maybe I only heard about it because my mother was in the pocket of Big Avon. But I can guarantee my info was neither from social media (which didn’t exist at the time) or “soft Telly” (which I didn’t watch).
Same, friend. I did a lot of camping in the Maine woods as a teen and Skin-So-Soft worked really well. It was also superior in that DEET would dissolve any plastic it came in contact with, including backpack straps, tents, and water bottles.
I find that the best protection from mosquitoes is to remain in proximity to someone they like better than you.
Then you’d love to hang out in my vicinity.
That’s my usual strategy. Fortunately, they don’t seem to like me much. I once watched a mosquito attempt repeatedly to get blood out of my laptop rather than moving over a foot to attack me. It landed on the warm spot over the CPU, attempted to drive its proboscis into the plastic, stopped, moved over a couple centimeters, drove its proboscis into the plastic, stopped, moved a couple centimeters in a different direction, drove its proboscis into the plastic…
Hear me out: Personal flamethrower