PANDERING TO VANITY

Several years ago I received a pamphlet in the mail from a company that sold HGH, or human growth hormone, in pill form. It would make me return to my youth. Sounded like a plan. With hope springing eternal, I ordered this stuff, which cost a small fortune, and took it for a month. Guess what. Didn't help at all. I fully expected to wake up at the end of 30 days saying things like "ga-ga, goo-goo." Didn't even make me feel or look 30 days younger, much less back to I'm only 9 months old. But because I was on their mailing list I continued to receive catalogs. One day I got one of their catalogs. An entire catalog devoted to their newest product, which I cannot even remember the name of. But there was a beautiful young woman on the front of this catalog with words similar to the following in big, bold letters. WANT TO LOOK 20 YEARS YOUNGER? WANT YOUR LINES AND WRINKLES TO DISAPPEAR? OK, that got my attention. Sure, who wouldn't want to look 35 instead of 55 and more like a beautiful young woman than a Shar-pei? As I'm reading about this miracle, they described something about it going around your eyes and it would erase all those lines and wrinkles and make you so beautiful why you'd turn the heads of all around you (OK so I might have added the last few words). They gave the impression that the star of the current popular movie had used something similar to this in the movie. I don't think they used her name or the name of the movie, but I got the point. It just so happened that the weekend before I got this catalog in the mail I watched Miss Congeniality with my daughter and grandchildren. So I knew for a fact that she used HEMORRHOID CREAM around her eyes. I also had read an article about one of the popular country singers who said she also used hemorrhoid cream around her eyes and had done so for years and thought everybody knew about that. So after I read this entire catalog, for only 29.99 you could get this miniscule tube of the miracle line and wrinkle remover which would make you so beautiful you would turn the heads of all around you while they watched you return to your youth.

Now, I asked myself, why in the world would I want to pay 29.99 for this itty bitty tube of STUFF, when I have a huge tube of generic Preparation H that was less than 5 bucks from Wal-Mart in the bathroom. One never knows when one will sprout hemorrhoids, best to be prepared. Heck, if it was good enough for Sandra Bullock to use in her movie, it was good enough for me. Why, maybe if I use this I'll be as beautiful as Sandra Bullock. So, with visions (delusions) of being as beautiful as Sandra Bullock, I go into the bathroom and find my huge economy-size tube of generic hemorrhoid cream. Ever see hemorrhoid cream? I don't know how many people have ever actually seen the stuff. I mean, it comes with an accessory tube full of holes for you to access the nether regions and since that is usually where it goes, who would have actually LOOKED at what was coming out of the tube. Let me tell ya, it looks like Vaseline meets super glue, so it must be powerful good stuff. I'm excited.

I dab a little around my eyes. But what about those cheek lines and the deep furrows from my nose down to the chin that made me look a cross between Fred Flinstone and the above-mentioned Sharp-Pei? Is there any difference in the skin around my eyes from the skin on the rest of my face? Is there some magic skin divider from eye skin to the rest of face skin? I pondered this question while carefully studing my face in the magnifying mirror, and because I could see no difference in this skin, decided to put the cream all over my face. After all, it could sure use a good puckering. And if a little bit would help out, SURELY more is better! So I slathered my entire face with about 1/4 inch of hemorrhoid cream. Then I took a good look in the mirror. Ever see the trail a slug makes? Now normally my husband sleeps until the crack of noon and I would have had this off my face before he ever made land fall. But in an uncharacteristic gesture the man got up shortly after I had the face covered. I was already back to work, since I can type and have face goo on at the same time. When he came into the office he asked me what I had on my face. Well, I wasn't going to own up to it being butt cream because I was trying to spare myself the crude jokes that were surely to come. But he said so many things anyway (just try to shut him up) I decided to go ahead and wipe this off my face. And that is where the problem came in. I used a hand full of tissues and they stuck fast to my face. I then used paper towels to try to get it off. They stuck to the parts of my face that weren't stuck with the little balls of left over tissue. I looked like a half-finished paper mache project. I went outside (to get away from his hysterical laughter) and gnats stuck to my face. I thought I was going to have to use a steel wool pad to get this off my face. Finally, after using hot water and instrustrial-strength shampoo, I was able to get the gnats, tissue, and paper towels off my face, but not all the hemorrhoid cream would melt off. Took about 3 days for me to get that completely off. And guess what, I still looked like Fred Flintstone meets Shar-Pei. My husband said it was okay, I was ugly when he married me.