Lash Out

It used to be that make-up was something to enhance what was already there. Now, like stage goop, it seems the more garish and bold, the better it is. You don't see too many people demonstrating this concept but if you do it's blatantly obvious. Clerks in stores are the best examples of this sort of excess. When you are paid the part timers wage they get, I suppose, why not go for broke - you are most of the time anyway. There is a clown-like anonymity in serving the public and fakery  such as "those shoes are YOU" or "that's YOUR look dahling", allow for a certain commercial freedom to be forgiven for such matters and make-up overkill. A drug store clerk I enountered (literally) recently had eyelashes that you could mop the floor with. They had little beads at the ends of each hair and so fascinated me that I could barely slide out my credit card to pay for the boring lipstick I deigned to buy. She wasn't apparently aware that those weapon-like eyelashes were criminal if concealed. They certainly weren't. And when she batted them and said," is there anything else?", I was so intimidated that I  fled. Other women more astute in matters of cosmetics than I, use such things as false eyelashes. I know because I have seen them fall into soups and flutter unlatched on the corners of their eyelids. These falsies are stunning if used correctly but it isn't an easy matter. I understand that you glue these things to the eyelid and then rip them off at night after some sort of melting solution. Ouch! So we have Miss Georgia Gorgeous who wears contacts, false eyelashes and eyeliner plus mascara and eye shadow. Her ample bodice is plastic, she gets her face filled with plastic and she wears a synthetic tight garment beneath her outer clothing - what there is of it - that like a second skin  is also plastic. No wonder she has to use Botox to numb what's left. With all that plastic how does a guy get to know the real woman under it all? What about his plastics: his Hair Club, his shaved body hair, his shoe lifts, his lifetime membership card to the weight room, his little box of blue or yellow pills and the other thingies to go with them? He has a plastic fetish as well. There are times I feel happy to be a Plain Jane,  to wash my face with soap and put on sunscreen in the morning. Mind you, I do wonder what it would be like to do "clubbing" and dating and all that Hollywood jazz. I wonder, should I sneak out that tiny package in the back of my secret drawer, the one that contains the false eyelashes and the bright pink lipstick and join the on-line Meet Your Sweet? Ah well, a girl can dream.