Sen-Sen Farewell

$399.00 on eBay. 

 The last few packages of Sen-Sen on the planet are selling on eBay for $30 - $40 each. An investment possibility? What will they be worth in ten years when I’m 87 and in need of extra cash? Will everyone who remembers Sen-Sen be dead? Probably.

I mentioned it at the book store to Jean, my friend. We were discussing a perfume we both wear, called Elixir which I told her I thought smelled faintly like Sen-Sen. She disagreed but immediately recalled a moment from her childhood in a farm town in Iowa and an elderly man, Arnold, who went to their church. Her parents had always told her to be nice to Arnold, a WWI veteran, because he had the shakes. Arnold kept Sen-Sen candy loose in his pocket and would hand them out to the kids, each tiny piece accompanied with a lot of old-man pocket lint. Jean remembers taking the tiny gift, being slightly repulsed, and telling Arnold she would save hers "for later." Jean has never been much for lint. 

My memories of Sen-Sen are related to drinking. I remember it as the tell-tale scent that surrounded the drinkers, and that was just about every man, when we were children. It was a big seller in bars and at the legion hall, but actually did the opposite of the intended masking. The minute you smelled it you knew something was being covered up and it stained the user's tongue a freaky greenish black.

For one crazy moment I thought about going into business, making a new version of Sen-Sen and contacted the manufacturer of a tableting machine. The more I read, the less interested I was. But then I read about one of the manufacturer's customers who had the brilliant idea to tabletize toothpaste. Pop a tablet in your mouth and it softens and becomes brushable. Goodbye billions of tubes and tops. After a little research I found this isn't a new idea. People have been making versions of this for years. Here's one method. Looks like fun to try.