Welcome to Jamestown: The Desensitization



                You’re going to get cancer, okay?  Just chill out, okay, and embrace it. Breathe it in, and plant the word in your psyche.  Now don’t breathe out.  And when you do get your cancer, The James will be there for you.  Like the mad dash to open shipping lanes and lay claim to the unimaginably horrifying melting Arctic, hospitals and Big Pharm will trample each other to plant their corporate flag right in the high point of your tumor.  The James just got tired of waiting, that’s all.  With a one-in-seven breast cancer rate, statistically speaking, you may now know more cancer sufferers than you do homosexuals, and supposedly the gays are everywhere!  The James has started a visual marketing blitzkrieg that, like cancer, began at a primary site, the wall-sized bald woman at the airport welcoming you to “C”-bus, but recently has metastasized, with secondary billboard and banner lesions all over town.   

upstaged.

                To be honest it really started a few years ago, with the christening of the massive Stefanie Spielman Breast Center, where we find yours truly, in the exam room at my yearly oncology check-up, wrapped in a plush terry cloth robe, sipping Chai tea, and of course, waiting for the doctor.  When she asked how I liked the new Breast Center, perhaps I should have just said, ‘fine’, and not, ‘wow, there’s a lot of money in breasts’, to which the doctor gave a short nervous laugh. As it was we both kept an eye on the ever-present turd floating in the cancer punch bowl for the remainder of the exam.   I am a grateful fifteen-year survivor of bilateral breast cancer who needs you to know that should you have cancer in your lifetime, there are a number of great medical outfits in Columbus, including The James, to treat you.  But because I am a complex human being, who enjoys live synapse and opposable thumbs, I am therefore able to be simultaneously hateful and grateful.   I’m hateful of the cancer industry yet grateful to be alive to complain about it.

                So, honestly, why shouldn’t The James advertise? It’s a free country, mostly, and The James is one of those corporation-people with every right to peddle its wares.  And I appreciate that they are laying off the “supple mounds of dread”, formerly known as breasts, for now, and fantastically voyaging into new cancer territories.  And let’s look at the message itself. 

“There Is No Routine Cancer”

Show us the prostate already! God, it's like reading Playgirl!

Hold the presses, I love it!  That hot rocket flew out of committee like a chunk of Heimlich beef, and why?— because it’s timeless.  It doesn’t chide you for shitty way you treated yourself up to that point and it doesn’t make promises of a cure.  It just floats in the now.   And it speaks to Millennials, who somehow altogether collectively think they’re individually unique.  Baby Boomers strive to fit in, but youngsters need to know that their tumor markers are as signature as their Otter case.  Yes, Dakota, Brittany and Owen, your cancer is different than your mom’s, your next door neighbor’s and your boss’s.  For God Sakes, you’re each a superstar!

                If we just relax and accept that cancer treatment and research is our industry here in Columbus, we would be able to open up a little, you know, maybe grant some naming rights. This would at least interrupt our current practice of naming things after closed manufacturing sites, like the pre-cancerous Lennox Town Center, The Wonder Bread Lofts, and of course, The Sofa Express Royal Academy of Advanced Online Learning K-8.  We’ll wave goodbye to ‘Value City Arena’, a name we despised so much that we refused to use it, and welcome, ‘The James Malignancy Plaza’ featuring Prostate Arena and Chemo Field.  “Just Watch Us Grow!”

..need to get cancer cat food at cancer Target while
 I'm here. Cancer, cancer cancer... 

                What’s devastating about this onslaught is that by design, and ubiquitous placement, it is subliminally desensitizing.  At least with global warming, I can join the deniers if I choose and stick my head in the hot sand.  But no one is denying cancer here, on the contrary, they’re bitch-slapping me in the face with it, constantly imploring that when I get it, they’d like a piece of that action…….. okay?  It’s like your kids sticking post-it notes on the furniture they want when you finally kick.  I accept that I’m sensitive to it, but I firmly believe if it doesn’t bother you, or you don’t really notice it, you may have already drunk the Chai tea.  You may be doomed.

                There is room for Columbus to have the greatest zoo, the most awesome Pride festival and the finest cancer treatment facility.  I’m not trying to deny The James their inalienable right to advertise, but how about empowering the individual with some tips on how to take cancer rates backward a bit?  Ads like,

“Could you eat a piece of fruit today?”—Love, The James

“Try to quit smoking, okay?  We don’t want to meet you.”—Fondly, the staff at The James

You see the problem is that the machine does not get fed that way, and the machine eats money.  So what the hell, let’s go with it, let’s carpet bomb Malignancy Plaza with all sorts of billboards.

“WHEN IT COMES BACK, WE’LL BE HERE” --The James

MARLBORO PINKS—“I’ve tried to quit and just can’t.  But it feels good to know I’m helping others when I smoke Pinks!”

THE REAL RACE FOR THE CURE—Obstacle Mud Run July 2nd and 3rd.  Open to uninsured cancer patients only.  First prize free treatment!

above:  Alzheimer's Blvd. in the Cancer Shopping Plaza

                Or let’s hold hands and jump off this speeding train together, because cancer is a formidable disease, not a rite of passage, not a fact of life, and not a rallying cause for all of femininity.  I can certainly think of better causes to bring together generations of women, like equal pay, or the worldwide end of rape and war.  Cancer can be a somewhat avoidable disease when you begin to make changes in your life to prevent it, instead of praying for King James to ride in once you have it.  And let’s give the word cancer the deference it deserves, ascending it from hypnotic ad-speak and isolating it from the same eye-shot as Three Olives Vodka, the latest Lotto scratch-off and the IPhone 5C.  I beg you, do not go gently into that plush terry cloth robe, because you might not be able to get out of it, and it will never be in The James’ interest for you to know that.

 



The Fruit Roll

            Fruit roll was scheduled to occur this day in 1968 at Oakland Elementary School in Cambridge at exactly 2:47 p.m., just after returning inside from final recess.  This was a perfect time since the excitement might carry us through to the end of the day at 3:24 p.m., completely thwarting any attempts of bringing the class around to any work.  And this third grade joint was off the hizook for fruit roll.  We came to school that morning with our piece of fruit and did nothing but finger it all day with our sweaty hands, checking it a hundred times to be sure it was still nestled in our flip-top desk between the pencil shavings and sunflower seeds.  Grapefruits got slammed and pressure juiced all day from the sloping desks.  All of us stewed in our hyper-giggle, that smile that your parents never really want when they say, ‘big smile now’.  

            The fruit roll was a sort of pragmatic socialist attempt at a fruit basket whereby children bring a round piece of fruit or a can of fruit and roll it forward through the aisles to teacher at an agreed upon roll cue.  It was an extra special event, never employed more than once a year.  Oranges and grapefruit were obvious fruit roll choices but children also brought unfortunate choices such as apples, plums, peaches and cantaloupe.  Canned fruit was also roll-able and acceptable for those children from across the tracks who lacked the fresh option. 

            Mrs. Drusedow, looking exactly how you might imagine, was not expecting fruit roll today but did notice the class was not typically exhausted from playing at final recess on playground equipment that I truly don’t know how anyone survived.  As everyone took their seat and waited to exhale, Tommy shot a stern look back at Billie Jo, reminding her to roll it underhand to the front.  She lived in a home and had anger issues.  The signal was given, “One two three, Roll!”

            Roll had commenced.  Now you have a picture of this fruit rolling mindfully and in some order to the front, where a delighted teacher looks on, but it does not happen that way.  The canned fruit starts strong but then veers one way or another.  Apples go off under children’s rusty desk legs and hit their muddy shoes and must be re-rolled again and again, each time earning another three feet towards the front of the room.  Oranges roll so well they slam into the front wall and start their bruised journey back again (Billie Jo).  There were no germs in 1968 and no five-second rule, there was only playground cinders, dirt, mice turds, asbestos debris, dehydrated boogers and lead paint chips, all forming a exponential protective crust on the fruit as it made it’s way to the target.  And from all of the screaming and laughing and the look on all of our faces, you’d think we’d just chipped in and bought that broad a new Lexus.

            But like the ginormous prize check that looks great in the newspaper photo, the one you never seem to see getting endorsed and cashed at the bank the next day, all magical things, like sunrise, must come to an end, and the business of Mrs. Drusedow picking up one-by-one these fruit remains and being ‘cordially gracious’ was not a thing to be witnessed.  Mrs. Drusedow was an army tank in a house dress.  She was of advanced years with only a limited number of bend-overs left in her.  She leaned over for one or two pieces, when, like a flock of birds suddenly changing direction, we collectively and simultaneously realized that seeing the fat on the back of her knees and the belts that were ‘holding’ her epically failing stockings was the opposite of the joy of fruit roll, fundamentally wrong, as if we callously opened the Arc of the Covenant, and so we jumped up, and scrambled to assist in the gathering of the fruit.   

the succulent and unmet expectation.

            Whatever became of the fruit is a mystery.  In the eight year old mind, the biodiverse basket is enjoyed piece-by glorious piece for each month of the year, never rotting, never consumed without a thought of the angelic child responsible for giving it.  In reality—well let’s not go there, shall we?  The fruit roll may have been only in Cambridge, only in the late 60’s and only at Oakland Elementary School.  The fruit roll was sunrise.  Merry Christmas everyone, and good health to all.  Have a piece of fruit.    

           

           

The CoronaRita Disaster of 2011

The dump heap

 The CoronaRita is a corporate-designed dangerous beverage.  This fad drink is showing up at Mexican restaurants all over, and as with any fad, it is my job to try it, hate it, and report back.  The CoronaRita is a margarita with a baby seven-ounce Corona beer lodged upside down in it.  Like a hurricane tore through a cantina and some enterprising busboy found this the next morning and said “Hey—wait a minute!”  Really a contraption as much as a cocktail,  this is a drink for people with nothing to talk about, you know, engineer-types with no social skills that could spend the entire time explaining why the corona slowly empties into the margarita.  I don’t like this drink because it begs the question, if my follow-up drink to a margarita is a corona and it’s already inside my premiere drink, then what is my follow-up drink?  It’s like having tiramisu-stuffed trout.   

 There’s no good way to drink the CoronaRita and salting the rim is futile since the rim is half taken with the plastic corona carriage piece, and the perverse sight of you trying to lick the side of this device may lead others to think you lick random items like the ketchup bottle or the check tray when it comes.   Maybe they could salt the rim of the straw.  Or sink a salt shaker in the damn thing.  Maybe submerge an entire meal.  If you were to drink normally out of this mouse trap you would put your eye out with a corona bottle or the effort would at least result in a ‘clean up at table six’ announcement in Spanish.  The double-beered hat with straw is cute at the Browns game but less attractive when ordered at the rehearsal dinner, yes?

            So, as advertised, the level of the upside down Corona did decrease as the ever-weakening margarita was consumed, however a design flaw revealed itself at the bottom of the glass where an icy log jam prevented the last half of the beer from emptying.  So after some attempt to encourage nature,  I tried pulling the bottle out of the glass so I could finish my mini-beer but after some wrestling the contraption came apart but the impact emptied the beer into the ice and was now beer on ice, one of my favorites.  And the whole process of trying to liberate three ounces of beer doesn’t look the least bit alcoholic from the table peering over. 

So at the end of the day, while James Bond would not be caught dead drinking this drink, his job does require travel-- and this device, with some minor adjustments, could certainly serve as a sort of alcoholic pet fountain for a drunken relative left behind.

Perverse Punishments

            There was a time in this country when the public humiliation and beating of children by their parents and protectors was thought to be a good and righteous thing.  I don’t know how it slowly died but I will guess it was through the onslaught of law degrees and that pied piper Hilary Clinton.  It’s really a shame that we not only lost the paddling option, but even worse we lost the vicarious punishment through public humiliation that supposedly ruined self esteems everywhere but was just super effective.  To remind you after so many years of what the combination of the two looked like I offer these gems from my own life.

            After my mother passed, my family ate many dinners out at the L and K restaurant (the home of endless family turmoil and all you-can-eat-perch), where this evening my brother and I cannot stop saying the words ‘baked potato’ over and over again.  Cut it, dad says.  We stop for a few seconds and then quietly start back in ‘…bakebuhdayduh, bakebuhdayduh…’ until we are loud again.   It’s one of those hypnotic words that when you say it often enough it gets addictive.  Yes, kids, before the advent of interactive video devices, children used to have a high old time just saying the same damn word over and over again.  Dad says cut it right now or you will go to the car.  But we’re slaves to the phonetic rhythm and Dad now threatens us that if we don’t shut the hell up and mind he is going to…

“Take you out into the middle of this restaurant, pull down your pants, and spank you with a hairbrush”

            This threat jumped clean to the perverse checkmate as it featured both pain and three or four levels of public embarrassment.  Dad was always so grizzly-like when he said it, and even though my father never touched any of his children, never spanked, whipped, slapped, switch-hit, nothin’-- he couldn’t even yell at us without smiling afterward, we always believed he would really do it.  And so this naked/hairbrush rant worked but now I wonder why?  If I were the logical being that I am today, this episode would have begged the question, “Why a hairbrush?  I can think of ten or twelve more interesting or terrifying items to beat a child with.  Like a yardstick, spatula, flyswatter, hmmm…well, actually a hairbrush is inspired.  And where would you get this hairbrush?  We’re at a restaurant.  I don’t have a hairbrush on me.  Are you sending me off with a dollar to purchase one from the bathroom vending machine?  If so, that’s anti-climactic and I’m crawling out of the window in there.  Should I go table to table?  Excuse me miss, if you have a hairbrush you can nod in approval while my father employs it to publicly shame me with it here by the salad bar while you finish your cream pie, so really Dad, really?”

            I was finally whacked in high school so hard it left a black and blue welt on my ass in the perfect shape of a paddle.  Miss Bryant, the girls’ gym teacher-slash-deliverer of pain, bred in the rich tradition of female PE teachers, all uniforms and showers, was small in stature but monkey strong, a semi-professional golfer, a skill which translated seamlessly to the field of educational ass-whooping.  It was a Friday and I got sent to the office for really I-don’t- remember-I-did-so-much-stupid-shit-in-high-school, where it was pre-determined that on that exact visit to the office I had successfully unlocked the third level of discipline, and subsequent confetti release, the menu of which was now exclusive to injurious bodily harm.  Performed by a female teacher.  With two teacher witnesses.  Yes...witnesses.  People, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, is it still perversely satisfying and vicarious?  No!  As it was there was no shortage of teachers willing to witness this thrashing, for all I know that line forming outside the office may have been a lottery-style drawing.  Besides, I myself could make at least a short list of folks that I might like to witness getting their asses pounded by a female P.E. teacher. But I deviate….So in the year of our Lord of Corporal Punishment, 1977, Miss Never-Married Bryant cocked her sun-leathered arm so far back she started her swing from the 8^th hole at the Dinah Shore Classic in Palm Desert and its whiff-less flight broke all sound barriers as it landed successfully in the main office of Cambridge High School on my bony and lily white middle-class ass.  Crack!

            The room went dark.  My eyes were in my glutes performing triage.  I may have vocalized but not verbalized.  Okay I may have said the word ‘fuck’.  But it was really more like the F sound followed by the remainder of residual air and gases that have resided in my body since birth now being expelled through every orifice, like when a lung collapses, or upon death.  Moments before, when I entered the office and assumed the position leaning against the table, Miss Bryant asked if I would take a couple steps to the right (clearly to accommodate her handicap, or the shifting wind direction from the oscillating fan).  Perhaps in retrospect I could have used more polite linguistic forms as I fulfilled the request.  But what did I care?  I was Dead Man Walking and I didn’t know what I didn’t yet know.  After the second whack my legs gave out and I fell to the ground.   Well, now at least they were forced to stop at two; otherwise this episode would have altered history and the world would never know Rodney King.

            I quickly rose to my feet with my brain still up my ass; to the voice of the principal in my face smiling and asking if I’d like to sign the paddle.  Jesus, at least try to mask your glee.  A quick scan of my psyche reveals that signing the paddle certainly seems like something I would like to do if my skin were not about to spontaneously melt off my backside.  Of course in the movie of me I would sign it and spit on it but the real me needed a quick exit because I was starting to cry and that’s the polar opposite of signing the paddle.  Even worse, I get home and my Dad has to look at my bruised butt and is shocked by the severity, but sadly not enough to avoid a two-day grounding.    

            So to bring these perverse yet commonplace occurrences into today’s standards, one asks, “Think any of that crap would fly today?”  The answer without a doubt is, “Hell No!”  Are there still folks that I could witness getting their naked butts cracked with a hairbrush in the middle of the restaurant?  You bet.  Let’s start with that loud obnoxious dick on the cell phone, chewing and talking, his girlfriend staring away and picking at her meal in isolated silence.  Let’s crack that guy so hard it rattles his ancestors, while we all nod in approval.   

--Lori Cannon is a writer of short web logs such as this one that have been published in her home computer printer and stapled together and enjoyed by her cats as poopy papers once shredded.

Horizontal Hold

I hold a special place in my heart for the Super Bowl ad for VW featuring the Darth Vader kid and his ‘magic hands’.  Because if you are old enough to know what the horizontal hold dial was for (not a euphemism), then you are also of an age to know that one could not always count on technology to work.  ‘Magic hands’ from the comfort of the sofa would work to right the malfunctioning picture tube quite by chance, maybe once in every eleven attempts, just statistically enough to qualify as intermittent reinforcement, solidifying magic hands as a viable TV stop-gap repair option. 

            Also effective was the well-placed rap to the top of the thing, which revealed a worn finish over time directly over the sweet spot.  Holding the antenna in your hand was also an effective marrying of man and machine, as I spent many nights holding on to the antenna to catch the last half hour of the Red Skelton show.  Good things never came easy.  I had a 45 record that broke from the center hole out clean to the edge, and if I matched it back together carefully enough and stacked enough pennies on the needle, it would play “Hey There Lonely Girl” without skipping on the ditch each time around.  I can’t imagine that banging my ipod against something would have the same effect.

            Back in the day, not counting on technology meant that it was possible that if a strong breeze hit, I may not get to see Buddy lose her virginity on Family, and once it’s gone, it’s gone.  There’s no DVR, no repeat on YouTube.  Her decimation was a one-time shot.  Best you could hope for was to phone a friend and get a blow-by-blow.  But Cathy’s not answering the phone.  Nobody is.  Buddy’s losing her virginity tonight on the set in the living room and there’s no phone in there.

            I could rattle on like those feel-good emails all of the splendors that kids these days have missed out on in life, but in honesty, we do come from a special generation (or two) that have the ability to choose technology.  We can dive into FaceBook.  Or not.   We can count back change from a coin belt and watch cloud formations morph in the wind.  We can settle for more and find happiness in less.  We are not so old that technology intimidates us and not so young to not remember life without it. 

            It was magical thinking to think that magic hands could rule technology, but millennials believe they do rule technology.   They certainly utilize it as fully and as effortlessly as a limb, a logical extension of their being.  But if you are of my generation, and along comes Watson, the IBM computer poised to clean up on tonight’s Jeopardy! challenge, how can you feel anything other than scared?  What if magical hands can no longer rule technology?  If Watson wins, have we turned the corner?  Will the technology monster hold out its magical hands and we’ll be screwed?  Perhaps as you count up the time spent staring at a blank screen during a long download, you’ll think that we already are.  Who’s in charge?  Good God, at least go look at cloud formations while you’re waiting. 

            So I close with a cheer for Ken Jennings to kick some PC ass this week, help appease my generation for another year or so, lull us into a vertical hold, believing that the generative use of language is ours and exclusively ours.  Along with the losing-of-the-virginity.  That’s ours too, at least for now.

God, church and germs

I grew up Methodist and I used to have this recurring dream where I was forced to sit in a non-existent area of the church sanctuary where you couldn’t see the minister.  That area was usually filled with folks that looked like extras on The Titanic.  My family was sitting elsewhere.  I learned from the Big Book of Dreams that this had nothing to do with church but everything to do with family strife.  Amen.

            I usually enjoyed church once I got up and got there, since Cathy and I would usually sit together and play cuss-word hangman (two six-letter words both ending in ‘r’) and write incriminating or gossipy notes on the church bulletin which then had to be destroyed fully at the end of the service.  We ate the red dollars and razzles we bought with our offering cash at Midtown News while cutting Sunday school.  Good thing they didn’t take attendance or I would have certainly had Sunday school detention.

            As an adult I don’t go to church the way I should, and I think I would go more often if the service would consist of only the following:.

1. One 20-minute sermon –send me away with the good word for the week.
2. Choir sings no more than two selections.  I do not have to sing with.
3. Benediction and clear the sanctuary.

I think it’s rude to ask me to stand up and sing some hymn I’ve never heard before from page 634 in The Methodist Hymnal written in a key in which I can’t reach the lowest note and the highest note is dog whistle.  I’m not warmed up!  If I wanted to be in the church choir I would have auditioned.  In short, if I know the song already, and can belt the whole selection in chest voice, I’m in, otherwise just let me rent my 12” of wooden pew with my $5.00 and handful-of-razzles-offering and let me be. 

            On the contrary, however, as a pre-teen budding actress, my favorite part of the service was the call-and-response.  I would always perk up in the odd week as I spotted my response lines printed in bold type in the bulletin as I settled into my pew.

 “I have a couple of lines it looks like.  I should take a moment to study those over.” 

Inevitably Cathy would be in the middle of scribing last night’s pursuits on my bulletin as we came to the call-and response segment, which was frustrating to me as I was trying to go to zero to prepare for my performance, it all comes up very quickly,

“He is Lord of all.”

I said it with emotion, with proper tenor, with 278 other people.

Waiting, waiting, waiting……

“We worship and praise your name.”

Could that have gone even better!?

            Of course the worst part of the service for me as an adult and the one that is enough to keep me away is that terribly awkward moment after the minor chords stop their echo through the pipes, after the sermon is over but before the benediction where one is literally forced by the church minister to turn and greet those around you with the phrase, “Peace Be With You”.   Even as an actor I really can’t motivate this moment.  What, are we suddenly and collectively dropped into a Shakespeare sonnet?  Can’t I put it into today’s vernacular and say something like, “I hope you get some peace this week.”  I think I’d rather fake speaking in tongues (redundant?) and dance wildly in the aisles naked than greet my neighbors at that moment.  Cathy and I would always laugh and do it in a hillbilly accent or something.

            This Peace-Be-With-You moment usually has one of two looks to it, either you are encouraged to hug your congregational neighbor or to shake hands.  During a visit to the Unity church we were obliged to hold hands while we sang the dog whistles.  As an aside, you should know that I don’t have that germ hang up that three-quarters of the loonies in this country have, it’s not that, trust me, I don’t even own a bottle of hand sanitizer, I’m very proud to be anti-antibacterial.  And that’s not to say I’m pro-illness, either, I’m just pro-choice. 

            Look, I love germs I just hate people.  I’ll kiss the blue-haired lady full on the mouth on her disappearing lips rather than shake her hand and say ‘Peace be with you’.  I’ll eat that casserole you brought in from your mobile home with twenty cats, bring it on, truly, I believe in germs as much as anything else in the church.  I guess I just look at church as a very personal and private affair and I want to be with my thoughts and meditations as I lament and pray for the entire state of the universe, but, but- if someone else is so moved by the holy spirit (rare in protestant services, by design) and feels they need to let it all hang out, I can be counted on to sit here and watch them.  But honestly we can’t have that open-ended histrionic display or this scripted service cannot be brought-in within the 10:45 – 12 noon timeslot.  There is a divine mandate to clear out this church so they can continue to heat it. And that’s why you end up with the peace-be-with-you trained seal moment.

            To sum up, I mostly don’t hate people, I do believe that germs are part of God’s kingdom too, and if I promise to get all fellowshippy at the potluck after, will you lift us from the bondage of that inorganic sonnet moment?  And save the universe from despair?  I humbly pray, Amen.

Cosmetically Inferior

So, I’m at the dentist the other day for my routine cleaning and I had to suffer the dental hygienist’s comments while the instruments are in my mouth with no chance to defend, little demoralizing, friendly comments like…

So you like the tea, do you?

I look at her helplessly.

Tea drinker?

 No, I signal.

Ahh, coffee!

Drink it black do you?

No, I say as I wrap my lips around the metal pick,  I drink it with cream. Why?  Are there stains? 

Just a little staining in the back, she assures me.

She begins scraping the back of my bottom teeth.  Hard.

Some people have more active salivary glands than others.  It leaves tougher deposits.

Brush side to side?

Up and down I motion with my hand.

Really?  Hmm.  Well, that’s good, up and down is best.

It looks like you’ve been flossing everyday.

I smile. 

Are you flossing at night when you should?

No, morning.

Mmm hmm.

A long silence as she scrapes and I search for a pattern in the acoustic tiles overhead.

You're right-handed?

OH FOR PETE”S SAKE!!!!  You can’t tell that from my teeth!.

The whole demoralizing affair reminded me of my biannual demeaning trips to the Clinique Counter at Macy’s.

Yes, I‘d like a bottle of the Superbalanced foundation in Crème Beige, I say confidently to the cosmetics doctor-girl in the lab coat. 

The Superbalanced?

Yes, yes, the Superbalanced, I maintain, closing my lips together, raising my eyebrows, in a yup-yup sort of way.  Crème Beige.

Not the Pore Minimizer foundation in Crème Beige?

No, no the Superbalanced.  I always get the Superbalanced.

Oooookay.  How about daily scrub cream today?

No, just the foundation.

Do you need any of the pore minimizing toner today?  Are you good with that?

Yes, fine with that.

How about the eye turnaround cream for under- eye lines and bags.  Have enough of that?

Yep, yep, plenty at home.

The lies started flowing like Superbalanced foundation from a 1.65 ounce bottle.

Pore cleanser, then?

Bought it!  Love it!

Eye wrinkle defense?

Full bottle at home!  That stuff is amazing!

My ever-dimming inner light just needs my card to go through that machine and for you to hand me my tiny bag and let me exit back out through the Starbucks.  How long can it take to put a jar in a bag and run a credit card?  If I were buying shoes this whole transaction would take ten seconds but the cosmetics encounter seems to crawl as you hold my purchase hostage while you study my face with your reading glasses. 

.

Would you like to try our brown spot fade cream with alpha hydroxy peptides?(earnestly)

No, no not today, I mumble, as I pretend to scratch my forehead in a manner that the rest of my hand obstructs any further examination.  At this point I have the bag in view and the end is near.

I have your foundation, and I’ve included a coupon for a “Bring Your Skin Back To Life” rescue trio that I think you might enjoy.  You have a wonderful day.

And you, I say, as I hurry off to search for my self-esteem that has wandered off into traffic.