Long, Lovely Lashes

Why do we girls glue on fake fingernails, put on high heels, or wear anything sounding so weird and awful as "Spanx"? Why do we bleach or highlight our hair, or wear those widget-gadget bras, or, for crying out loud, bleach our upper lip?

Okay. I'll give us the last one. Any gal who needs to bleach her upper lip probably should do so, before the sun gets too high in the sky. But all the other stuff we do makes me wonder mightily at what ails us. At the risk of being the pot that calls all the kettles black, I will confess to one thing: my real hair color is Paula Deen silver. No lie. My first gray hair popped out when I was fifteen years old, and now, at a young forty-two, I am silver-white. I've worn it silver, and I've worn it brunette. I like it both ways, actually.

Beyond that, though, I've pretty much sworn off of being a mute, helpless slave to false, air-brushed magazine images. I don't even fall for the picture of the girl on the front of the hair color box anymore. It is all a clever lie, far as I'm concerned. My hair never looks like the girl's on the box.

I have had my own acquaintance with deep bondage. I've had those moments when something just came over me - when I leave the house, and come home looking shocking, with either a very sudden tan, or unnaturally perfect fingernails. I remember that time, more than ten years ago, when I stepped into my bathroom, and an hour later, stepped out with Miss Piggy Eyelashes...

I got glue in my eyes, and actually glued the first few lashes on upside down. (I will nev-er get the hang of doing anything whilst looking in a mirror!) The whole process of pulling the upside down eyelashes back off was quite painful, causing those little tears that spring to one's eyes when something smarts horribly. Hence, the super glue became somewhat liquefied, and seeped into my eyes.

In a daze, I steadied my hand on the sink, where a few of Tim's whiskers lay, unbeknownst to me. When I retrieved that hand to firmly (and I do mean firmly) press a lash down, I ended up with Tim's whiskers and one three inch long hair of my very own, super glued to my eyelid.

Folks, you can't make this stuff up.

Finally, one exhausting hour later, I was done, or so I thought. I casually walked through my house...and my children stopped one by one to gape and stare. It was then I thought that the lashes might be a teensy weensy bit too long. So back into the bathroom I went, to cut them down with my tiny hair cutting scissors. Not an easy task, especially when looking into a mirror.

Tim came home, and I proudly batted my eyes all evening long. I would get close to his face and look deeply into his brown eyes, just to see if he would notice anything unusual. Well, he didn't notice the eyelashes ("Yipee! They must look real!") but he did think, quite understandably, but mistakenly, that I was urgently burning with love for him.

In truth, I was exhausted from the physical and emotional eyelash battle of the day, so I fell asleep early, while trying to read a book in bed. My head was buried face first, deep in my pillow, where Tim found me. He rolled me over, kissing my face tenderly. I tried to respond...

...but couldn't get one eye open. I am not even lying to you.

I casually turned my face away, and manually ripped my eye back open, then turned back to deliver my kisses. He stopped cold, stock still. He peered. He drew very close, and, as though reaching for a loathsome spider, took his thumb and forefinger and plucked this hairy foreign object from my cheek. He looked it over intently, wondering what it could possibly be. Slowly, a horrified expression covered his face, when he found many such hairy things all over my pillow.

"Confess ye your faults one to another..." I had to confess, I had no choice. Then came a long lecture about how he hates anything false on me. Other women can wear the wonderbras, the corsets, the padded bottoms on the underwear, but not his wife, he declared. Other women can surgically enhance themselves, but not me, he proclaimed. I am allowed to primp and pouf, adorn and make-up myself, hair-spray and dress myself to a wildly reasonable degree, but no more of this silly fake stuff.

Meekly, I repented from my moment of craziness. What else could a girl with gooey, strange looking eyes do? And when I am in a more reasonable frame of mind, I can see that Tim's right about me. God made me exactly as I am, and He knew what He was doing. Insecurity tends to make a woman wildly UNattractive, anyway.

As I said in the beginning, I think I am more or less permanently released from utter bondage. A little super glue in the eyes would teach any fool. Please remind me of this fact the next time I'm in the drug store looking at the cellulite creams, the body bronzers, the clip-on hair pieces, the...