BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Team spirit or no team spirit, I think it was tacky when Cheyenne Whitlock, star forward of the Peabody Funeral Home co-ed soccer team, tore off her jersey and twirled it around in head after last week's game.

She wasn't even wearing a sports bra. She was wearing a lacy peek-a-boo demi-bra from Krystal's XXX. The referee blew his whistle and told her to put her shirt back on but she just kept running all over the field yelling and doing back flips. Finally, the fire department came and hosed her down which only made it worse.

The game has been shown over and over on cable access, at least a hundred times. Some have speculated that it's a deliberate attempt by the station manager to brainwash Axel women into taking off their tops. Anyway, it worked. Now everybody's doing it and half the town is in jail for indecent exposure.

Yesterday Ed Lively, who owns the bingo parlor, called and asked me to come down and pick up my grandmother. She had taken her housedress off when she called Bingo and was creating a public nuisance in her Playtex 18-hour bra.

"Look at me. Look at me. I won, I won, I won," she said as I tried to push her into the car.

She got away and did a backflip in the parking lot. I couldn't help noticing she was wearing the same bra she has had for the last 18 years.

"Grandma, what you need is a sports bra like Brandi Chastain's," I said. We headed for the mall.

"It's like a tiny undershirt," she said, as we pulled it over her head.

"I'll bet Ed will let you wear this at the Bingo parlor," I said.

"Yes, only now I'm a milk dud," she said. "This thing doesn't lift and separate."

Oh, to have such a minor problem with ones underwear. Grandma is a perky, wiry woman and she looks great in a sports bra. It's harder for full-figured gals to go public. For one thing, the bra selection really sucks and people point at you when you're jogging. And even for general, everyday use, you're stuck with buying a conical contraption like Madonna used to wear--except it's big and white and ugly. When you hang it on the kitchen doorknob after a long day at the office, it drags the floor and gets in the dog water. But the bright side is--you can swing it around your head and maybe lasso a steer with it.

As if public bra wearing isn't bad enough, Brandi Chastain started another fad when she posed nude with her soccer ball in "Gear." She's all scrunched down and greased up and she's sideways, so nothing shows. She looks, well, hot. Every woman in Axel wants to try it. First, it was beach balls and volleyballs. Then it was baseballs and bowling balls. Now it's the entire girls' field hockey team with just their little puck!

The county Women's Bass Master took her picture behind an eight pound large-mouth bass. The summer camp yo-yo champion posed next to her Yomega Spitfire. Now Grandma wants her picture taken with a ball of yarn. Where will it end?

Ping pong, anyone?