BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

The movie "Erin Brockovich" has everybody wondering, "Is it ok to dress like a slut at work?"

I have proudly worn the costume of the bimbo for most of my life. But there is a price to pay. Sometimes your seams split or your underwear shows. Worse yet, your breathing may be restricted, as mine was at our high school prom. While I was unconscious, my date, a hunky exchange student named Bjorn, hooked up with an old girlfriend and when I came to, I had been consigned to the care of this squirrelly, glamourless girl, who ordered me to take off my girdle and said I ought to take up sports. It left me wondering--how could a babe magnet like Bjorn ever have gone for HER?

I was tall and jazzy and tragic and cool. And she was a drab, practical little creature who planned to major in home ec. I was going to major in Flamenco dancing--I had the shoes and everything. Debbie wore regular clothes and did only American dances. That Bjorn could ever have even noticed her among the profusion of horny, thrill seeking girls at school was a mystery that disturbed me. I tossed and turned at night and awoke clutching my pajama top. The question was--Is Bjorn a square? And if he was, did that mean I was uncool too?

When I think of the hours I spent creating my image--walking with a stack of encyclopedias on my head, the rhumba lessons, coating my entire body with shortening twice a day. Having to back down the high dive ladder so my fake eyelashes wouldn't fall off in the water. The struggle to keep my head dry at all times--treading water, knowing that if my make-up got wet, it would melt into a hideous monster mask, not to mention my various hair pieces. My teenage friends would ever know about the fabulous cannonballs and can openers I could do, for which I used to be known at Nedwalder family reunions. My female relatives feared and loathed me. But now I had turned into one of them--in polyester hot pants that had to be dry cleaned!

It was worth it, though, as long as I could terrorize people with my unbelievable gorgeousness. If I could make men sit up on their hind legs and beg, make other women tuck their tails and run. Still, I couldn't get it out of my head. How had Bjorn been attracted to a dowdy little thing with a recipe for smothered steak?

Then it hit me--maybe I was too glamourous for my own good.

Debbie was the sort of girl you could take home to Mom and Mom wouldn't view her as a threat. She was about as cute as Mom, their figures were the same. THIS was why I was an old maid of eighteen, while all my girlfriends had been married for years!

I began wearing my grandmother's clothes and a strand of pop beads I got out of a gum machine. I wore penny loafers or Keds with plaid skirts and button-down shirts. Overnight, I was invited to a cookie exchange. The next thing I know, I'm at a meeting of our school's Young Republicans club. It was an experience I'll never forget.

I was actually relieved when Bjorn married Debbie that summer. I could go back to dressing like a whore. I've never regretted it.