I tell ya, dudes, it is a chore to find normal, non-metrosexual deodorant these days.

Has anyone else had this problem in the hygiene aisle at your local megastore? You don't want any fancy perfumes, you don't have a concern about those chalky white stains (tank tops on men should be relegated to yard work, weight lifting and NASCAR events, none of which demands a tolerable odor in the first place), and as a guy of the male gender you ain't about to get your panties in a twist about irritation. No, you're just looking for something that'll keep you from smelling like a wet bull moose during mating season (and, preferably, from sweating through your dress shirt before your nine o'clock) under the crush of summer humidity.

The one that I used to favor was the clear solid antiperspirant stick Right Guard made. It didn't ball up in my underarm hairs like the white sticks, it didn't just trickle down my sides like the gels -- it stayed put and did its job. OK, so they technically had a scent, but "Sport" smelled like deodorant and was unobtrusive, so I stuck with that for years.

But then it abruptly disappeared. I could find other scents, but "Fresh" smelled like an evergreen Starburst and "Cool" was apparently inspired by chlorine gas. This coincided with the introduction of the whole "Sport" line of fragrances -- none of which, dare I add, smelled like the original "Sport."

So now I can't find that one elusive stick, the one that represses your repugnant male odor without bringing any unwanted aroma to the party. They all have some frou-frou, pansified scent now. Sure, they have macho, powerful, testicular descriptions, but those aren't really fooling anybody, are they? We're one step away from "Intense Lavender Rush" and "Peaches and Extreme."

When I finally do find one whose bouquet I can live with, by the way, it rarely lives up to its antiperspirant billing. That Right Guard clear stick I mentioned before actually worked, but by the time I was willing to grit my teeth and smell like Grizzly Adams' swimming pool, they'd pulled them from the market altogether, no doubt citing such pretexts as "low sales," "confusing cross-marketing" and "lymphatic cancer." The only way some of these sticks can stop my sweating is if I trowel them on like grout, a thick layer of antiperspirant stick barring any liquid passage. That is, until I stretch, break the seal and send a half-cup of salt water per pit cascading down my flanks.

It's a conspiracy, I tell ya, a ploy to get us all wearing women's deodorant. I might just switch to Secret Honeysuckle Melon now and save the marketers the trouble. After all, the commercial says it's strong enough for a man. Let's see you bastards prove it.