With Apologies to Jimmy Fallon and His Thank-You Notes

Thank you, Drugstore.com, for –

Selling UltraSwim [chlorine-removing shampoo] in the dead of winter.

Selling UltraSwim at a price significantly below manufacturer’s suggested retail.

Suggesting that, if I like UltraSwim, I might like L’Oreal Kids Swim & Sport 2-in-1 Shampoo and Body Wash with gentle chlorine-removing formula.  [I like the concept, and the 8 year-old will appreciate the convenience of a 2-in-1, the no-tear formula and the sunny orange fragrance.  On account of how oranges are his favorite fruit, and orange is his second-favorite color, behind green and ahead of “camo.”  “Silver” is in the number four spot, in case you were wondering.]

Offering free shipping on purchases of $25 or more.

Offering a variety of other products that (1) helped me cross the twenty five-dollar finish line and (2) were products that we needed to buy anyway.  [Most of them involving urine.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I needed lotion with 10% urea, because it is winter, and the keratosis pilaris – you may know it as “chicken skin” – on my arms is flaring up something terrible.  Spouse, who took over litter box-cleaning duty when I was pregnant with the Big Kid, and who has remained on little box-cleaning duty ever since then, and who regularly points out that I can take over litter box-cleaning duty ANY DAY NOW since I am, currently, “negative one hundred-weeks pregnant,” having birthed the Little Kid eight years and four months ago, and who rolls his eyes when I tell him that I am going to have to play the uterus card yet again and that cleaning out the litter box is the least he can do for me after I endured two pregnancies and C-section births for him – yeah, Spouse “needed” litter pellets, and the space-aged pee-absorbing pads that insert into the bottom of our space-aged litter box.  I commented on the irony of how I am seeking to acquire urine at the same time that he is seeking to get rid of it, and there was some discussion of me rubbing cat pee pads on my arms as an experiment – actually, just on one arm, and I would put the urea lotion on the other arm as a control.  Then we agreed that that was a totally disgusting, albeit kinda amusing, idea.]

Offering coconut oil in a variety of sizes and price points.  [Because I have been wanting to try it, as a supplement and/or as a 1:1 substitute for butter.  Dr. Oz swears by it, but Dr. Oz and I don’t always agree, so I only wanted to commit to a small quantity to start.]

Agreeing to put an amount equal to 7% of our purchase into the kids’ Upromise account.

Providing us with “Drugstore.com Bucks” applicable to a future purchase.

I calculate that, with tax, my purchase would have cost me $75.64 at a brick-and-mortar store.  After deducting Drugstore.com’s price discounts off of MSR ($8.20), sales tax ($5.14), Upromise contribution ($4.34) and Drugstore.com Bucks ($3.12), I spent $54.84, for total savings of $20.80.

Not chump change.  Not in the least.