Mary Kay

Don't ask how, but Sunday afternoon I wound up in Greenlake at a Mary Kay cosmetics party.

I said don't ask.

Look, if you're going to keep bringing it up, we'll end this thing right now. Is that what you want? I'll walk right out of here, I swear to Hog.

Okay then.

It was quite odd. It was almost like a support group. This pleasant primped woman in the sort of professional skirty clothes I didn't realise still existed in this world (I'm a mathematician; we don't dress for success) sat us in a circle and we had to introduce ourselves, then slather our faces and hands in odd exfoliating creams and ointments guaranteed to keep your skin young and tender. They were greasy; I felt like I'd been swimming in butter. I tried to unobtrusively rub it all off with a tissue when no-one was looking. And they're so much work; these things come in so many flavours and species, and need to be applied in such specific combinations for maximal effectiveness...Is it really worth that much effort just to cloak a few tiny crinkles around the mouth? I think not, o sirs and madams! And then they started talking about makeup, which I opted out of (except for lipstick, just for a laugh; I discovered that lipstick makes me look like a slut. A really weird, scruffy slut), which is even worse...I watched with mounting horror and incomprehension as these poor women were deluged in foundations and eyeliners and glosses and pigments and guano and hippopotamus lard and who knows what else, in what seemed to be an intricate form of ritual torture. I wondered if this is what had happened to Elizabeth I. Or maybe the Mummy. What an abomination against all reason and rationality, that a substantial fraction of the human species should be expected to devote a non-trivial amount of its time and energy to such futile, such meaningless, such awkward, almost demeaning procedures. As if your faces aren't good enough as they are...

Our society really screws women over, subjecting them to such bizarre and unnatural social expectations. I feel sorry for all of you who have to put up with this on a regular basis. I wish there was something I could do to help.

I have learned to be thankful that evolution has left me with the power to sprout hair upon my face, as a barrier against most forms of cosmetic assault. Now I will read Jerkcity, and feel manly.

Posted by aloysius at December 17, 2003 08:40 PM | TrackBack |