Isopropyl .. April 26, 2007
Posted by stagedive in Idle Thoughts, Kids, Music, My Girlfriend.trackback
Say hello, wave goodbye ..
It is the end of an era .. in days of old, when ships set sail to restore England’s pride, I bought a smoky brown glass jar of Isopropyl Alcohol from Boots Chemist for £3.69 (I know cos the label is still on it) on recommendation of the geeky looking guy in the hi-fi shop .. I was a mere teenager and audio cassettes were the de rigour .. I used to record loads of trite off the radio and had just started getting into four track home recording on my Tascam Porta 1 .. ahh those were the days ..
To clean the cassette heads you used to have to get a cotton bud, dip it in the alcohol and rub all the dirt and grime away before you made your masterpiece .. the smell is instant and recognisable, like a mix of pencil smells & clinical institutions ..
Anyway .. I’ve kept that self same bottle of Alcohol on the shelf for all those years, it saw me through leaving home, came with me to college, my first real home, having kids (I think that’s when it went to the high shelf) through to today .. but needs must .. I was clearing space out for girls stuff ‘well where am I going to put my stuff?’, said T, with what I have to admit was a reasonable degree of concern and empathy* .. the junk had to go .. I had ditched the audio cassettes some 3 or 4 years ago, but the Isopropyl stood for so much more ..
It is now no longer. Where the bottle once stood, now stands girls stuff .. disposable stuff that will probably be out of favour in a few months and replaced by the seasons’ hot trends .. tee hee .. so long big brown bottle, you have been good to me ..
* It’s because she is worth it ..
What a coincidence – this is nuts!! I too had a small bottle of IPA, (not the Greene King variety, which is used for an altogether different type of head cleaning.) Anyway, it sat unloved in a box with a few other 80’s relics until the other day when I had to get some gluey sticker gunk remains off some stuff. I tried every solvent I had in the house with no luck, finally found the IPA, it worked a treat! But the contents of the dusty bottle had evapourated over the years and there was barely a drop left. So while your bottle was on death row I went and bought some more! The fact that you have disposed of such a superbly useful and ultimately masculine solvent in favour of girl stuff is very, very sad. You may think you can use nail varnish remover (acetone) for solventy bloke jobs but it disolves many plastics irrepairably. Blokes solvents are always better. Boots probably don’t stock it anymore but you will reassured to know I got mine on ebay for only £3.49, in a large manly 500ml bottle with two orange hazard warning stickers on it. Splash it all over, ‘Enry
Brilliant. I also love the fact that you knew the chemical name for Nail varnish remover and felt the need to share Al ..
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If I had known said bottle could have found a new home I would have wisked it round .. alas contents safely disposed of now and bottle recycled .. probably to return as an award winning stained glass window if there is any justice in this world ..