Every time I visit home, I can expect that my dear mom, because she loves me so much, will try to pack as much food and gifts as possible that will fit into my luggage and carry-on bag. Some of this stuff would be packaged and thus easy to pack, liked green tea or dried shiitake mushrooms, but others are actually for immediate consumption – grape tomatoes, avocados, oranges, and even takeout dim sum (this time, it was six ha gow, six siu mai, four zhong, four cha siu bao, and three lao po bing). I’m probably the only passenger who ever gets on an SFO > JFK flight with that much fresh food in their carry-on backpack. In reference to the cha siu bao or zhong, my mom says, “It’s better made here!” Or in reference to the avocados or oranges, she exclaims, “they’re cheaper in San Francisco than in New York!” That’s how much my mom loves me. She wants me to constantly eat to my heart’s content, especially when she is not there to feed me.
So the oddest thing I brought back this time around was a bottle of Endless Youth Beautiful Skin Complex daily multivitamins. No, my mom was not duped into buying these; they were actually mistakenly delivered to one of my dad’s rental properties along with some Wen hair products, so my mom took them home and decided to keep some, give some to her friends, and then give me the bottle of vitamins. While having all the usual vitamins that a regular multivitamin is supposed to have, it also claims to have “healthy skin support.” So before I decided to start taking them, Chris has me look them up, and apparently when Googled, you find this under “rip off reports,” for giving you a free sample bottle in exchange for signing up for a monthly supply, and then making it nearly impossible for you to unsubscribe. I guess it’s not a very honest business.