BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Greetings, Earthlings. Happy '98. Your psychic sidekick sees big fur balls on the horizon: the do-it-yourself liposuction kit, something called cheese fries, and a new gim'me cap sensation called the Melting Polar Ice Cap.

Perhaps the biggest news of all, however, is my candidacy for Fort Worth City Council. Mr. Mayor, meet your nightmare.

You're probably saying, "Fort Worth? I thought Vicki Charmaine lived in Axel."

That was back in happier times. Back before Fort Worth, asserting the doctrine of manifest destiny, annexed half the town, splitting my beauty shop--2001, a Hair Odyssey--down the middle. All of a sudden I can clip your nose hairs in Axel and fix you a sophisticated French twist in the bustling metroplex!

So anyway the other day I was walking down Main Street--which I now call the Road to Damascus--when I noticed somebody had painted a big red stripe on the pavement. It continued up the curb and right through the beauty shop.

"What the hell does this mean?" I asked the woman who answered the phone at city hall.

"It means two tax bills, two water bills and you're going to have to decide between the Axel Grass Burrs and the Fort Worth Hellcats come baseball season."

Yet another cross to bear. Why should I, who am so peaceful and hardly ever have any fun, be confronted with problems like this?

I trudged to the corner store for a six pack and a copy of Axel Style with its predictions by home fashions editor Ivana Tubbs which I hoped might perk me up. Low and behold, according to Ivana who lives in a converted Quonset hut, by next year the empty lot across the street from the beauty shop will be the playground of the rich and famous! That big city developer must have a direct line to La Toya Jackson's Psychic Network to dream up a scheme like that with the EPA clean-up still in the planning stage. Anyway, when I went down to city hall to complain about my shop being subdivided, Boss Man Ed Blevins--"the Big BM"--who runs the post-annexation political machine, threatened to condemn the beauty shop and build a mall.

"Don't take it so hard, Honey," he said, slobbering on his fat stogie. "I'll pay you $40 a square foot."

Gee, then we could buy a lot at Cotton Mouth Harbor. I could have that bad tooth pulled. And the girls could get their augmentations done. It sounded too good to be true. I ran to the phone to call my husband Sonny and tell him he wouldn't need to sell blood after all. On the way I saw the sad faces of the pathetic wretches who got left behind in crummy Axel during the annexation. The wretches who wouldn't be getting an exclusive lake lot. It just wasn't fair.

Thus began my political quest.

I used to be like you. A stupid, mindless robot who believed that if I did my job--40 beehives a week during the holiday season--then Mayor Bean would do his--passing out cowboy hats to visiting dignitaries, riding around Grass Burr Stadium on the homecoming float, etc.

Now some big shot outsider thinks he can decide who's a Grass Burr and who's not. Who gets a souped up hot rod and who gets stuck with their same old pitiful '77 Buick. Even who will become an urbane sophisticate and who'll remain a country bumpkin.

We need more than a mayor. We need a savior.

Suddenly it hit me--why should I sit idly by trusting Big Brother to "take care of me" with his Soylent Green, mind control and genetic engineering? Why should I allow my every thought to be controlled by the sinister Boss Man?

I had to warn the public. But how could I get people's attention? Billboards, jingles, slogans--I wracked my brain. Then I caught a glimpse of my slack-jawed husband watching the football game. And I saw how he perked up when the beer commercial came on.

How to get everybody's attention? The answer hit me like a load of bricks. Full frontal nudity!

Remember Lady Godiva? Not the candy that's too expensive to really pig out on (so what's the use?) but the gal who rode a bucking bronco in the buff to get some guy's attention during the Spanish Inquisition or something. She had a full head of knee-length hair, so it was almost the same as wearing a gorilla suit. She got people's attention anyway, which is why they named the candy after her.

It was SHOCK VALUE, a term used in modern marketing that allows ad execs to tack on $500,000 to their bill. Shock value can be pretty pricey but, as every teenager knows, the home-grown version is still a bargain.

That's where I got the idea of running for FW City Council as "the Nude Candidate," even though I will actually be wearing an assortment of attractive garments from Letha's Rent-to-Own such as a plastic leopard print raincoat. It's the only way to wake citizens up to the international conspiracy going on right under our noses.

I was pretty excited about finally taking a stand on an issue. Even so, I tossed and turned all night worrying. I worried about the kids who will beat Jasper up on the playground and the truck drivers who will run Sonny off the road as his rig strains under the weight of 1500 cases of Ol' Red. I thought of the prudish old biddies in the Concubines of the Knights of Pythagoras who will probably never speak to me again.

I thought of my elderly parents being forced to move to another state.

Oh, how I struggled through the endless night! Is it immoral to break a social rule--for example, burping without saying "excuse me"--if the continued survival of mankind depends on it?

In one ear, a cute little devil said, "Take off your clothes." In the other, a stern-faced angel advised, "The navy gabardine would be perfect."

Back and forth they argued. Devil--angel. Angel--devil.

At last, haggard and exhausted, I got out of bed to turn on the Three Stooges. There was the Boss Man himself in his manufactured housing commercial, his toupee so lifelike, his $2,000 teeth glinting like sabers. He was pitching trailers like there was no tomorrow, a realistic expectation here in tornado alley. He was a huckster, a con man, the same guy who promised to outfit the whole sheriff's department with new Corvette squad cars. Before I knew what I was doing I picked up the phone and dialed T-R-A-I-L-E-R to order a double-wide.

Then I tripped over the dog and came to my senses. I realized--you can't fight city hall but you can strip down to your Wonderbra for a good cause.

It may well be our only remaining freedom.

It is with great modesty that I, Vicki Charmaine Bunch, ask for your support in my race for Fort Worth City Council.