I just made the terrible mistake of going to the cosmetic counter at Macy’s when I was feeling tired and crappy. I knew I shouldn’t have done it. I was paler than usual—feeling blah and dumpy. I’m sure this contributed to my vulnerability and complete lack of self-preservation. Nevertheless, as I stood at the entrance of the storefront I thought I could do it—make it in and out, without something awful happening.
This did not happen. My original mission, which I have completed 99% of the time, was not accomplished. My goal of buying the one thing I needed: an Estee Lauder Velour lipstick was left un-bought and I was sucked into a hideous vortex of Cosmetic Lady language where “one” means “several” or “for $299.95 more you can have this package of six lavender nail polishes and two Face Crater Repair Creams.” In a handy tote bag. With strawberries painted all over it. In an odd shape that doesn’t fit in any purse. To go into the closet with the twelve other unused ones.
Before everything went wrong I rehearsed my usual strategy:
- Walk fast with head down, not looking up, to the left or to the right
- Have a no-nonsense-don’t-bother-me-with-small-talk attitude
- Point with authority and say “I’ll take ONE of THOSE.”
- Never ask any question other than “Where is the exit?”
In and out in a matter of minutes and I emerge with my one item, not wondering anything out of the ordinary about aloe or copper or why Heather Locklear still looks like she’s thirteen. This is usually my fail-proof plan. This day, however, was an exception. After the episode was over, I walked away with $250 worth of useless, yet magical, pore eliminators, skin hydrants and anti-aging serums. (How can anyone be against aging? Isn’t that like being an opponent of gravity?)
My guard dropped as I was bolting past the Chanel counter. I glanced at an oddly shaped bottle of lotion that looked like a tiny tool I used to assemble a lamp I bought from Ikea. That looks like that useless little wrench from Ikea, I thought, forgetting my one-item purchase mission for a split second. Out of nowhere, a large, chipper woman with eyelids the color of fresh basil was in front of me. “I can help!” she said, and squirted a glob of cold lotion all over my hand. I shrunk at the sight of her, holding her lotion like a pistol.
“I’m looking for the Estee Lauder counter,” I forced out.
She said she thought Estee Lauder had gone out of business. “Weren’t they cancelled?”
Things unraveled quickly from here. She began bombarding me with questions about my skin care “regimen” (had I ever used moisturizer, she wondered out loud), my heritage (she thought I might be Russian due to the dryness around my eyes), my exercise routine, if any, (apparently weight training equals a rosy complexion) and my overall mental health. With each question came a hodgepodge of remedies that would fix me up and keep me from sliding farther down the arid mountain she saw me careening. Most important, she advised like a surgeon, many Russian women have a dangerously low moisture quotient. Although I don’t have a drop of Russian blood in me I nodded my head dutifully, afraid she might call security to cart me away for not listening to her. I swear it was like I was in a trance. A bad trance. The kind of trance that leads to poor choices and dizziness.
I trudged out of Macy’s with a Face Care Package any woman would be satisfied with. Any woman of Irish decent who let someone talk them into believing she was Russian and has $250 to flush down the toilet, that is. I got home, not only lipstick-less but angry for having spent money I didn’t want to spend on things I didn’t need to buy from a human tornado I didn’t like and couldn’t have liked me. I decided to go back the next day and return all of it. I would take my receipt, shoot straight to the Chanel counter like a Green Beret and, in a Russian-Irishey accent, demand my money back. If anyone questioned me I planned to reference the defying nature of all the lotions I bought and explain that the high moisture quotient caused water to gather on my brain.
