*I kid. Not about the marathons, but the Hillbilly Handfishin' marathon. Oh sure, it's on here, but I've never watched it on purpose. I had to look up Skipper and Trent's names on Wikipedia -it also took me three tries to figure out how to spell Hillbilly. Even a minimally employed Tatveg has to have standards. There's a certain point below which I will not sink. Well...not so far.
**Seriously people. Can someone tell me what the difference is between Rampage, Destroyed in Seconds, What Happened Next? and Seconds From Disaster? They're the same show. Reyna and I have taken to yelling, "and then it was destroyed in seconds!!" at each other randomly. I'm going to write a strongly worded letter to Discovery asking them to replace all those shows with Mythbusters and Locked Up Abroad. Who's with me?
This is really a roundabout way to say that I've kept everyone waiting for a fairly monumental moment in my Vietnamese life. Specifically that I'm now the excessively proud owner of this:
Incredibly I didn't have to venture into the fiery pits of Mount Doom to get it either. I didn't steal it out from under the nose of a snoozing taxi driver at the witching hour either. I bought it at Metro. It was all rather underwhelming to be honest. Reyna and I were shopping -well let's rephrase that -Reyna was shopping and accomplishing something constructive. I was wandering around looking at all the silly shit they sell at Metro.
You can't buy peanut oil there, but they do have 37 different types of rice cooker and a faux leather replacement seat with "Gucci" tooling for your motorbike -not a seat cover, mind you, an entire seat. There are times there when you think to yourself, "Someone honestly thought they could make money manufacturing that thing. And worse, they SOLD IT TO SOMEONE ELSE who thought it was something worth selling in one of the largest retailers in Asia. It totally reminds me of this.
That clip reminds me of this blog too, come to think of it...
Anyway we were wandering through Metro. Reyna was hunting for something -I don't know what but it was apparently in the vicinity of the "Auto Parts" section. The Auto Parts section is markedly different from the same section at, say, Walmart because they don't sell things like touch up paint and motor oil. Nope. They sell helmets and half-finger gloves and whole bunch of other things you would never associate with driving. It was then that my eye fell on our friend.
Time stood still.
"There it is!" I screeched.
We stood and stared. We gaped. I think Reyna was as surprised to see it as I was. Moments later I was holding it in my hand. This particular Hennessy Cannon was not in the best shape. It's clear plastic housing was cracked and had been reassembled using packing tape. It was like holding an abandoned puppy at the animal shelter, and with trembling hands I turned to Reyna and said, "I'm buying this." To this day I have no qualms about spending $5 on a hunk of plastic that will never actually be used for it's intended purpose.
And what might that be, you ask? It's an air freshener. Kind of a let down after all the hypothesizing I'd done for the last two years. And I learned some things that day. That the cannon does not utilize the iconic Hennessy bottle. It's a clever knock-off known as Napoleon, which probably explains why I could never find one on the Internets. A Hennessy air freshener does exist, but not in cannon form. It's a much classier looking clear plastic "piece" that holds the Hennessy bottle at almost the exact same angle. I did manage to learn that much, what I didn't learn is if the Hennessy air freshener smells like Hennessy. I couldn't bring myself to a.) spend six additional dollars on my little obsession; or b.) actually open it and smell it in my own home. I don't think people who like Hennessy want their home to smell like it.
*I told you it was classier...
I think one of the stranger lessons of this whole episode was that it had never occurred to me until that moment that the Hennessy Cannon is something that can be purchased in a store. Consequently it had never occurred to me to shop for one. I'd always just looked for them in passing cars. The idea of having a Hennessy Cannon of my very own was one that was as the Vietnamese spoken by the taxi drivers who own its brothers (and sisters I guess -I tend to think of a cannon as being unarguably male...). I never thought of it as something that could be owned, more like something you encountered -like the Mona Lisa or the Hope Diamond, only with a shorter line.
So now it sits in our house. In some ways it's like a time bomb, because I live in fear that it will be jostled off a table and crack open. Then we'll be stuck with an Asian interpretation of whatever a 17th century French emperor's cognac smelled like. And I don't think anyone wants that. I don't think it's a coincidence that every car I've ever seen containing a Henny Cannon has it's windows rolled down. If it broke, I would be left without my very own (and very first) cannon air freshener, and stuck with a weird smelling house.
In some ways I feel like we can move away from Vietnam. I don't particularly want to, but at least if we do leave, I will not go to my grave wondering about the origins of the Hennessy Cannon. Turns out they sell them at the store. Who would have thought?
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