Don’t you have a pump?
I don’t even draw a breath: any pause would spoil the artistry of my slightly but completely justifiably indignant response.
There’s a pump?
My hair-stylist/salon-owner looks at me in the mirror, trying to decide if I’m serious. I look back steadily and, as well as I can from under the cape, give him the hands-opening-up-and-out-shrug: the universal hand signal for Seriously, I did not know there was a pump.
He’s still looking at me in disbelief. After 22 years of pretty clear sailing on the hair-cutting and conversing front, this exchange has clearly shaken his confidence in me. Like, how can I NOT know about the pump?
Don’t you have a pump?
No, he doesn’t actually say it again, but it’s in his eyes. Somewhere behind the eyes I expect that a different question has also started to take shape: one that will lead to A Talk with his staff.
Dagnab it,
why aren’t you selling pumps
when people buy big bottles of shampoo?
As I gather my stuff, he’s getting a staff member to chase down a pump to add to it. All this because I mildly mentioned that the litre-size bottle of one of their Special Shampoos is overtly and, as compared to the others in the same size, overly resistant to squeezing. As I slowly recover–or slowly do not–from my tennis-elbow-like gardening injury, this heavy-and-hard-to-squeeze bottle is now actually painful to use. For sure, a pump would have helped. It would still help.
There’s a pump?
How often does this particular disconnect happen? The one where the person having the solution assumes everyone already knows about it and so they say nothing, and the person needing the solution doesn’t know it exists and so they say nothing about their problem. If the specific question is unlikely to be forthcoming, the generic question is even more unlikely to be helpful.
Is there anything I don’t know?
And so we stumble around, occasionally stumbling upon a solution when we happen to articulate our problem in front of someone who knows something we don’t.
Yes, Virginia,
there is a pump.
How many more solutions are out there? I dunno, but many, I expect. The next time I’m fighting with something, I’m going to think about my inflamed elbow and the painful-to-squeeze bottle of shampoo, and speak up.
Maybe, just maybe, someone will have a pump.
Isabel – Walmart and Shoppers occasionally have empty litre-size bottles with pumps available for sale. Of course they require the owner to transfer the contents from giant, economy size bottles of liquid soap or shampoo, or conditioner to said generic smaller plastic bottle with pump.
I think they are only occasionally for sale, because other people have stumbled onto the secret.
John – Good tip! Thanks.
I am going to think about your need for a pump as I move towards advertising my phone app (still in development). Things that no one has thought of before can make a world of difference and a different world.
I am sorry about your tennis-gardening elbow. I recall a similar pain in my arm from carrying babies around for a couple of years — our first two came in rapid succession. Such an injury is more than an inconvenience. I hope it heals soon.
Laurna – I believe that healing is occurring, thanks – just much less slowly than seems reasonable! And you’re right. The best innovations seem to be the ones where half the people say “Why bother?” on first exposure, and the other half say “Give it to me!” and snatch it away. When you see something that you didn’t know you always needed, the recognition can be instantaneous.
Maybe it’s my legacy of 40 years as an OT? But I’m always looking for ways to make it easier to do something- I cringe to think of you trying to squeeze a 1lire bottle! SO glad you now have a pump! Especially as we age, we all may need to find different ways to do what was easy before – so yes, speak up, and ask
Alison – I have a fuzzy memory of tracking down things of this sort for Mom, who was always amazed that enough other people had her problem/limitation that there was “a product for that”. If we live long enough, we get to play all the parts in this little drama.
Here’s another one. When I went to see a respiratory technician after having been diagnosed with asthma and prescribed an inhaler, she asked “Didn’t he give you a spacer inhaler (variously referred to as an aerochamber or inhalation chamber)?” When I shook my head “no” she muttered “Doctors!”.
Mary – 🙂 Yeah, it can be a trick to find the right person to ask, even when we remember to ask! Doctors, indeed.
I didn’t know one could buy a pump separate from a bottle with pump. Now I know for when I need a separate pump. Thanks.
Judith – 🙂
Isabel
Go to Costco. Their shampoo comes in a pump-bottle.
Guaranteed easy to use. No waste.
Tom
Tom – Costco has everything . . .