Caught in the Shampoo Matrix

Right now I have ten bottles of eight different kinds of shampoo.

I loved one called Aussie Custard Apple and five years ago found a dozen bottles in a dollar store - bonanza! Little did I know that it was being phased out. I've watered them down, mixed them with other (lesser) Aussie shampoos, but the Custard Apples are, sigh, almost gone. Only two bottles left.

I bought some online from London that's supposed to be the new update on Custard Apple, but it has conditioner in it, which I don't use because it turns my head into a streaming mess of greasy pasta.

But I thought I'd try this anyway because I was desperate. It's okay, but not the Custard Apple of old, plus it's $20 including shipping for a small bottle!

Then last summer washing my hair at my son Aaron's apartment, I stumbled into the Matrix.

Mmmm, shiny smooth sleek-looking hair! The problem is, regular stores that you can walk into and take things off the shelf and bring them home in special reusable tote-bags don't seem to carry it, so I have to order Matrix Sleek Look in the orange bottle on the internet.

Which I have done. But it's spendy, too - twenty bucks for the size seen above, 13.5 oz. So I did some research and found another source that sells the 33.8 oz. size for $15 each! I ordered two, thinking I'd be set for a good long time. (The trendy sunglasses are for scale purposes.) Imagine my shock when what comes is a huge box of two bottles of the dreaded CONDITIONER!

I looked at my internet order, and it APPEARS that, yes, it was my mistake, although I have a hard time believing it. Okay, fine, fine, I decide to keep the two monster bottles instead of sending them back - HUGE HASSLE! - because Frank says he'll use them, eventually. (His hair doesn't have the slimy pasta problem, although it does tangle easily.)

Here is Frank after using the new Matrix conditioner, which makes his hair soft and curly and in general brings out the best in him:

So, back to the internet site, Buy.com, whereupon I order one 33 oz. shampoo. SHAMPOO.

Imagine my shock when this comes a few days later:

A tiny box stuffed with styrofoam peanuts and otherwise empty, no wait, at the bottom a tiny bottle of Matrix shampoo: 1.7 ounces!

A teeny-tiny baby of a bottle! A miniature. A joke!

Sick at heart, I contact Buy.com and they tell me to contact the seller directly who says, "Terribly sorry for this, would you like to setup for an exchange as this wasn't intentional at all." I am so reassured and happy that they didn't INTENTIONALLY send me a bottle that is FIVE PERCENT as big as the one I ORDERED. He promises to send me a label so I can ship the offending bit of orange plastic back, and he will, of course, send me the real thing. That was a week ago - as of this moment, no label, no shampoo.

To add insult to injury, I vacuumed the living room and somehow the box flipped over right in front of the vacuum fan so a MILLION PEANUTS magically flew into every crevice and corner!

I'm a new-age Goldilocks, stuck in the shampoo MATRIX!

Update:  I was refunded my purchase from Perfume Worldwide (don't buy from them!) yet had no new supply of shampoo until we went to Montauk where I found a jackpot at White's which has everything you could ever want (barring maybe wine and hardware).  As Andrew said, we could live there.  

PS:  Matrix shampoo is super spendy!  I use it every other time, or as Aaron said, for special occasions.
PSS:  Since this post was made, every store in my neighborhood has turned up with Matrix shampoo.  Within three blocks I have two - TWO - sources.  I must use this power only for good.