I’ve been reading a lot of children’s books lately,* and some of them feature magical adventures. This has left me longing for a magical adventure of my own. So I decided to set off on one, to the advertising pages of the June 1922 issue of The Ladies’ Home Journal.

As my fellow magical adventurer Alice would be the first to tell you, even a magical day should start with a good breakfast,** so I’ll pour myself a bowl of Post Toasties.

I’ll celebrate my healthy food choice by having a doughnut fried in Snowdrift shortening.

After breakfast, I’ll wash up with Palmolive soap***

and dab on some some Woodbury skin products.****

Even magical adventurers have to do the laundry, but don’t worry, P and G white soap is as much fun as…arithmetic!

I’ll put on my L’Aiglon slip-over, which, get this, you just SLIP ON OVER YOUR HEAD,

walk the dog on the beach and take some snaps,

and spend a happy afternoon hanging out with friends on the Congoleum,

enjoying some Perfetto sugar wafers

and refreshing Coca-Cola.*****

Uh-oh, unexpected guests at dinnertime! No problem, we’ll scare them off by claiming that we’re having Libby’s canned meat

and then get out the real dinner, attractively served on Fry’s Oven Glass.

Washing up is a pleasure when you do it with Old Dutch Cleanser.

I’ll slip on my hair net and head out to a party.

My beauty powder is having its desired effect.

Could this be love????

I’m getting ahead of myself. For the moment, I’ll go home and, with the music still ringing in my ears, sit under the Mazda lamp with Mom****** and tell her all about my day.

She can’t believe her little girl who used to have nightmares about Jell-O is all grown up.

You might be thinking that these are not exactly Alice-level magical adventures. But I’m preparing to leave Cape Town for several months, and, although I’m looking forward to my trip, I’ve been savoring the time I have left here and thinking about how sometimes an ordinary day is the most magical thing of all.

*For a new project I can’t wait to tell you all about!

**Of course, the Queen would argue that you need to believe six impossible things first.

***Palmolive may be exaggerating the virtues of the “schoolgirl complexion” (see: Woodbury skin products).

****Note to Woodbury: you shouldn’t have to squint to see the name of the product.

*****Did it have cocaine in it, you ask? I did some research and learned that the original recipe, from 1886, did include cocaine, or more accurately a precursor chemical, although not all that much. This was reduced to a trace amount in 1902, and Coke became completely cocaine-free in 1929.

******Who looks about 60 years older than me.