BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Axel's in deep dump trouble. Residents living in the exclusive community of Withering Heights smell like rotting garbage.

"We've had to forget about dating, working in retail, or running for political office," moaned June DePew, Axel's daring fashion maven. "We're like skunks--striking but a hazard to be around." June's not the only one concerned about the landfill which located here recently.

"One morning, I look out and a mountain has suddenly appeared on the horizon," said my best friend Brandi's ex-husband Lance. Lance and his new wife Frisky bought a four bedroom-three bath split level in Withering Heights right after the divorce. Frisky has put countless hours into the Plaster of Paris menagerie on the front lawn. I can see it from the upstairs window of our home in neighboring Leftover Hills and, when the wind is from the south, I think I'm at the zoo.

"The stench lets me know I'm alive," I said. "If only everyone could look on the sunny side."

"This place used to be a paradise, with golfing privileges and a view of the pond," Lance lamented. "Sure, there was the occasional fish kill or a run-over duck. But nothing that didn't stop stinking after a few days. A week at most."

"The dump is the gift that keeps on giving," I said.

"Frisky and I would move but who would think of paying $350,000 for a house smack-dab in the middle of Stinkville? We've even tried to trick people by saying something must have crawled into the wall and died. But sooner or later they figure it out."

Lance is in the anger stage. Some neighbors are still in denial. They think the smell is a teenager's gym shoe or a hunk of something moldy under the couch. They scour their floors in vain, and subject expensive, neurotic animals to traumatic and humiliating baths.

"It's not the landfill," they pathetically insist. "The landfill is our friend." At least they still have a friend, unlike most of us who carry the faint scent of refuse.

Lulu Crenshaw, the chiropractor's wife, attributes her waning popularity to changing demographics. "A lot of our local yuppies who graduated from Axel High School moved to Dallas and have even quit sending Christmas cards. They say it's from the smell. I say it's for the shopping. But now that Dub started carrying Ralph Lauren at the Wagon Wheel, what's the point?"

Lulu and others try to keep up appearances but it's a losing battle, even with designer jeans. Nobody likes a socialite who smells like a French tart. Perfume wafts from the fence posts that surround the dump--Alonzo BO-5 is the chemical name. Last fall a member of a radical environmental group got his flannel shirt caught on the barbed wire. The group's newsletter sadly reports that he has smelled like Summer in Marseilles ever since. His girlfriend left and his dog ran away.

My grandmother's Chihuahua sneezes whenever I'm around so I know how he must feel. Nobody calls. You're never invited anywhere. Loved ones claim they've been in jail, comatose, or confined to a mental institution, but they can't fool me. I only received one Valentine. It was from the company that runs the dump but I don't believe they really love me.