Sometimes the simplest things provide the most profound pleasures. I’m not the cologne-wearing type but my father used to slap this stuff on when I was a kid, and I remember liking the aroma when I passed by him in the upstairs hallway when he was about to leave for work.

So two or three days ago I bought some, and it’s made me very happy on some level to slap it on after all these decades. Aqua Velva has been a staple of American regular-guy culture since the 1930s, I believe. It’s like Burma Shave.