BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Last week Mr. Blackwell released his worst dressed list for 1999. Brandi and I were talking about it on the way to the bowling alley.

"He said the Dixie Chicks 'look like a trio of truckstop fashion tragedies trapped in a typhoon,'" I said. "Surely he meant tornado. Shows what he knows about Texas weather."

"And Texas style," Brandi said. "He probably can't tell a tank from a wife-beater shirt."

"The women he picked for his best-dressed list--Oprah Winfrey, Barbra Streisand, Gyneth Paltrow--are just a bunch of goody-two-shoes who wouldn't be caught dead in a tube top and cut-offs. They think Daisy Dukes is Donald Duck's wife," I said.

"Obviously Mr. Blackwell isn't a Texan," Brandi said, pulling into the patking lot of Meadowbrook Lanes. A whole slew (sp) of cute cowboys were standing by their dually. (sp.) She rolled down her window and winked at the tallest one. "If he were, he would have a mullet and a can of Skoal which, last time I looked, he didn't."

Yeah," I said, checking out the action. "He'd have big silver belt buckle with a pair of tight ass jeans."

"He would pick women like us for his best-dressed list," Brandi said. She was wearing stretch pants, blue eye shadow and a see-through shirt with a black brasierre. She was sipping a wine cooler and tapping her foot long finger nails on the dashboard to the tune of "Steamy Windows" by Kenny Chesney.

"What do you think about Mr. Blackwell's best-dressed list?" I asked her.

"I think it's time for him to pass the torch--to somebody like George Strait," she said.

"Just think if we got picked and we got to meet George Strait."

"Who wants to meet Mr. Blackwell?" Brandi asked, pulling into the bowling alley parking lot.

"Yeah, like he's really cute," I said, hopping out of the pick-up. We put on our matching pink satin jackets and headed through the doors of Meadowbrook Lanes. As usual, every guy there gawked at us like we were Oprah Winfrey and Barbra Streisand, here to bowl and few games and eat a chili pie which we always do before we go home.

Smiley Hopkins came over and offered Brandi a cigarette. "You ever broke 125?" he asked. He was just making conversation, the way guys always do when we go bowling. Smiley's never heard of Mr. Blackwell. Pretty soon we were surrounded by men offering to buy us Odor-eaters (spelling?) and ___________.

We're used to it. Yet we are pretty-much resigned that we will never make Mr. Blackwell's list of best-dressed, no matter how many Disney character sweatshirts and high heel pumps we buy.

"What does Mr. Blackwell know?" I said. "He said Martha Stewart dresses like the centerfold for the Farmer's Almanac."

"I wonder if the Almanac will sue," Brandi said.