Literally intoxicated

                My mother and I often have discussions dealing with art and pop culture. I spoke to her recently about the culture jamming assignment and described the fragrance ad that we viewed in class in which 2 models were drinking a bottle of cologne. To this my mother said, "well some people drink cologne." Thinking she was joking I laughed and soon stopped when I realized that she was completely serious. She then began to explain to me that while she lived and worked in Russia that the problem with alcoholism was rampant and many did not have the money for alcohol so the popular alternative was to drink cheap cologne. This was not just a case of one or two people this was a common practice and although after continued use there were many that went blind this did not stop the epidemic. My mother told me of one case in particular where a woman who she worked with saved up money for an expensive French Perfume. The woman returned the next day to work crying because her husband not knowing the price of the fragrance drank it all.