They're Not Wrinkles...You're Just Hallucinating

There comes a time in every middle-aged woman's life when she has to surrender her loyalty for "going natural" to the makers of Crack-Fill-For-Your-Face and other such wonders. Having been offered the chance to ring in the New Year surrounded by intoxicated people in a dance hall in lieu of peeling cheese nachos off the sofa after the kids fell asleep seemed like one of those "good idea at the time" kind of deals.

The first order of business was a new dress. Not just any new dress....one that had to make my husband weak in the knees (and not from the price tag), and bring the room to total silence when I crossed the dance floor, and make the band immediately stop what they're playing and break into "You Look Wonderful Tonight". *sigh*...

Flying to the mall to begin this magical adventure armed to the teeth with my husband's credit cards, I find myself in a clothing store heavily populated and staffed by young women who look like the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders' evil twins. Ignoring the "What the hell are you doing in here?" looks dripping from the faces of the masses, I grab an armload of fabric from the counter and defiantly march to the dressing room.

Not having had the opportunity to try on new clothes that didn't have holes for breastfeeding in them for quite some time, I'm a little surprised at the firm hug the fabric is giving me once I squeeze into it. Ignoring the snickers from the staff on the other side of the curtain, I suck my gut in 'till my spine cracks and saunter out to gaze at my newest frock in the full length mirror.

Congratulating myself for maintaining my figure after three kids and 20-odd years of reality TV and Doritos, I pretend I'm deaf when the salesclerk announces "That's the drycleaning bag for our Big and Tall Menswear section".

Enjoying the sounds of the cheerleaders coughing on the vapor trail I left running out of the store, I head to the nearest outlet that sells clothes from the line of whatever used-to-be-skinny celebrity who's cashing in on every housewife's cross to bear.

Now that I've found suitable couture that doesn't involve a hunting shirt, I decide that maybe updating my look wouldn't hurt. Surely there's someone in this mall that can undo this mullet-married-to-a-beehive hairdo that I've been sporting in order to use up all those hairspray samples that keep coming in the mail.

Sliding into the beautician's chair at our local Cut and Curl, I fail to see the humor in the hairdressers doing "Rock, Paper, Scissors" right in front of me to see who has to earn their paycheck today. With a sickening sweet smile, this bimbo with a name tag reading "Feather" (can't possibly be her real name), directs me to "the back room"....both for privacy and so that no one else in the mall sees me sitting there in a drycleaning bag.

Dipping my head into a vat of water that's one degree shy of lava in order to melt the hairspray, "Feather" tells me that she needs to "take a few stray hairs" from my eyebrows..and upper lip..and chin. Pouring hot wax in copious amounts on my tender skin, I am sorely unprepared for the first four layers of my head being ripped off while "Feather" calls me Hagrid under her breath. Although horrified to see the wooly mammoth that used to be my right eyebrow stuck to the little strip of cloth on the counter, I cooly excuse myself from the back room. OK...maybe it was more like "Touch me again and I'll pluck you"...but I manage to gingerly feel my way out of the door as my right eye swells shut.

Perched on a stool in front of a mirror with enough lights on it to signal the mother ship, I let "Feather"s assistant assess what's left of the skin on my face and start erasing the years. Pressed for time, I ask her to please stop whimpering, and reassure her she can go ahead and quit right after we're done.

Spinning me around to face a mirror that magnifies my face until it looks like a Google Earth close up of Death Valley, I hear her ask "Feather" to "Find some drywall compound while I distract her with shiny objects". Mesmerized by the paper clips and keys, I hardly notice as she pastes my face with the cosmetic equivalent of Spackle.

Snapped out of my reverie by the wail of the fire alarm, I'm knocked to the floor by the wind shear left by "Feather" and her friend as they abandon ship. Staggering to the hallway, I realize I can't ask for directions to the nearest exit as my face has turned into a concrete block as it dried.

I'm only vaguely aware of the horrified stares from the other shoppers as I stumble to the parking lot with my face cemented into a one-eyed, (and one-eye browed) grimace, with my wet, sticky hair plastered to my face, and "Big and Tall...We Fit Them All" plastered across my ass...and search in vain for car keys in an empty drycleaning bag.

Lurching to a group of teenagers who are eyeing me like all those warnings about marijuana have finally come true, I ask to use a cell phone in a voice that sounds like a muffled scream because my lips are encased in asphalt. Snatching a phone from the hands of one of the teens taking pictures that will surely make me an internet sensation by dinnertime, I dial the number for Roadside Assitance and make muffled screaming noises at the man on the other end of the line until he hangs up on me.

Whirled around by a big police officer who watched me "acquire" a phone, I squawk muffled protests and feel both relieved and alarmed as he gets a good look at me and takes a few steps backwards. Cuffed and in the back of the police cruiser, I'm grieving the loss of what would have been my shining moment on the dance floor...and dreading explaining this one to the hubby.

As the police officer speaks right into my face in a very loud and deliberately slow manner to explain the fingerprinting process, I make a mental note to get in on the bets I'm hearing that my mugshot will make YouTube history. Handing me a phone, he dials the number for a government issed lawyer and gives it to me.

Making muffled noises into the mouthpiece until the lawyer growls about the cops prank calling him again, I hang my head as the "on hold" music begins......"You look wonderful tonight....."