My hair salon offered a holiday special that included a free upper lip wax with any regular service. Being in a festive mood after my haircut, I gleefully agreed and prepared for my face to be smooth as a baby’s butt. Instead, the pretty young hairdresser plastered enough hot wax to remove Geraldo Rivera’s mustache and when she ripped it off, the wax tore off patches of skin from my tender lip. I was left with bloody scabs just in time for important year-end meetings and jolly Christmas parties.
“I’m so sorry,” she gushed as she smeared Vaseline across the ravaged lip. “Your lip is so thin some wax accidentally smeared over it.”
So now she had inflicted bodily harm AND insulted my features. (I love my lip because it’s the only thin thing on my body.) I looked around for a hot curling iron to shove up her nose but my eyes were tearing too much to see clearly. Instead, I did what most women do: I said it was okay. Why in the hell did I say that? It wasn’t okay. I was in breathless pain and blood was oozing from my greasy lip.
She still needed to style my hair, so she handed me the latest issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine and offered a cup of coffee. I snarled no because I didn’t want to plunge my battered mouth into steaming hot liquid. She turned on the blow dryer and I anticipated she would set my hair on fire to make me forget the pain in my lip.
The perfect faces in the magazine only taunted my hapless predicament. I flipped to an article titled “52 Hot Crazy Sex Moves.” One suggestion to ignite my inner sex kitten was to spank my lover with a paddle that left heart-shaped marks on his butt. Why would I do that? To make him forget my abused mouth? My inner sex kitten would rather have some milk and take a nap, and Studley would prefer a sandwich and a cold beer.
Another provocative article discussed the serious topic of sex toys and endorsed a vibrator shaped like a candy cane. I often have small grandchildren running around the house so I immediately erased the image of them finding such a device and happily bringing it to the holiday dining table for all the guests to see. Turn the page, turn the page.
As a writer, I often wonder who writes the trash in women’s magazines. Some writer actually pitches a ridiculous story and gets paid to write it. Maybe I should submit an article titled “Hot Crazy Sex Moves for Those Over 50.” I’ll bet a month’s supply of iron tablets and stool softener pills than it would get rejected.
Cosmopolitan Magazine has been published since 1886 and has paid subscriptions from 3 million readers. It has 64 international editions printed in 35 languages and is distributed to more than 100 countries, including Mongolia. The temperature there is now -22 degrees. The natives are so bundled in warm clothes that a swat on the butt with a seductive paddle wouldn’t be noticed. Maybe I could write an article about how to get pleasure by sending your hairdresser to Mongolia. I’d laugh but that would hurt.
Today’s blog was fueled by a 2009 Lamadrid Malbec from Argentina. I think the best Malbecs are from Argentina – but I may need to sample other regions. My market research is never finished.
