My name is KC and I’m a Chap-aholic. Gentlemen, put your hand in your pockets (ladies, in your purse if you please) and pull out a handful of whatever you got.

Chances are you have grabbed your car keys, some loose change and possibly a stick of incredibly stale gum that could break a jaw.

However, the most precious piece of paraphernalia is not your cell phone or the Taco Bell receipt for two burritos and a Pepsi. It is that tiny, cylinder-shaped tube of lip balm, commonly known as ChapStick.

Now before you scoff, roll your eyes and completely disregard what you are about to read, just think about it for a minute.

How many times have you found yourself only making matters worse by constantly licking your lips in a futile attempt to keep them un-chapped?

How many times have you walked to class in the brutal winter wind not thinking of the math test you didn’t study for, but of the forgotten, and much needed, tube of ChapStick sitting in the cup holder of your car?

And guys admit it. How many times have you been desperate enough to keep your chops from feeling like chalk that you have borrowed a stick of bubble-gum flavored Lip Smackers from your girlfriend?

It’s like an addiction. A handy little drug that comes in a variety of sizes, flavors and brands.

There are the ChapStick junkies like me, Burt’s Bees fiends, Blistex users and Carmex abusers.

I think the moment I seriously considered checking into ChapStick rehab was the time I borrowed some from a complete stranger.

Stuck at work, with my ChapStick at home and my lips feeling like I could start a fire just by rubbing them together, I needed a hit, and I needed it bad.

Overhearing my moans of agony and discomfort, a kindly woman offered me her ChapStick with the moisturizers and SPF 15, my favorite.

After applying a few swipes of the wonder drug, I was in heaven.

Unfortunately, I only had a few moments of ecstasy before a thousand questions hit me at once: What if she has the flu? What if she has a cold sore? What if she has herpes? There’s no treatment for that! I don’t want to suppress something my whole life.

Luckily, I walked away from this encounter unscathed and without herpes, but with a determined mind to never go wanting of ChapStick again.

My advice to those who have it bad for the balm like I do: stock up. A pack of ChapStick will only set you back $1.02 (trust me, I know).

Even as I type this column I have three tubes of ChapStick in my pocket, two in backpack and no telling how many scattered around my car and house.

 

KC Ifeanyi is a junior journalism major from Ruston who serves as a news editor for The Tech Talk. Email comments to kni002@latech.edu.