BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

All I wanted for Christmas was peace and quiet and one of those $90 machines that plays the sound of a gurgling brook or a waterfall to drown out the din of modern life.

All I got was a cheap pair of earplugs.

What a surprise when I crammed them in my ears and discovered inner peace. They muffled Little Henry's drum solo and Aunt Reba's terrible rendition of O Holy Night. They muted Grandpa's demented cackle as he tested his new Geiger counter and the squeal of the Christmas hog.

Earplugs are like a cheap lobotomy. You become impervious to bitching, death threats and idle chit chat. How peaceful you appear, people remark, with your Mona Lisa smile. Is the mantra working? Is it the St. John's Wort?

I've always been a delicate flower, practically aristocratic in my sensitivity to external stimuli. Like a pea-bruised princess, I'm wounded by lumpy oatmeal, stinky shoes, and the sound of termites munching the two by fours.

Getting rid of noise is as easy as an ice pick to the ear drum, but what about the nose? What about the overdressed matron at church who reeks of some chic toilet water--"Heroin" or "Spanish Fly" or "Spinal Block?" What about cigars, dead fish, the cat box?

What about a whole town that smells like a stink bomb?

On the first 49 degree day in December, Axelites strap on their snow shoes and trudge to the back fence for logs to construct 6-alarm infernos in their fireplaces. Our lovely little hamlet with its cheerful Grass Burr statue is transformed into a smouldering zone of toxic air.

A frail, environmentally sensitive person might be tempted to transfer her flexible rubber saviors from her ears to her nostrils. That's how I wound up in ICU on Christmas day.

According to experts, more patients are seen in emergency rooms on Christmas than all other days of the year combined. The reason? The misuse and/or abuse of gifts.

Many of us as children required surgical removal of potentially fatal objects lodged in the nose--pinto beans, raisins, June bugs. Earplugs, which expand in a moist environment to the diameter of any bodily orifice, are a far deadlier obstruction.

Trying to remember to breathe through my mouth was an exercise in futility, even though my nostrils were sealed tight. And despite the fact my fully-functioning mouth was apparent as I pled with bystanders to perform a tracheotomy, I finally convinced a good Samaritan to give it a go.

The good news is that with my new neck hole, for the first time I approached the deductible at which point my insurance would kick in. The bad news is that, with my Christmas earplugs in my nose, I could hear every irritating sound made by my rescuer--her gum popping and incessant humming, her growling stomach.

I blacked out from sensory overload.

The wail of an ambulance is a hazy memory. I came to in a room that smelled of disinfectant. Someone was playing the Kathy Lee Christmas album.

"You'll live," I heard the doctor say. "But never put earplugs in your nose again."

How will I survive? Will life be worth living? The outlook for '98 looks grim.

The aroma of an unidentifiable cutlet and overcooked vegetables wafts from the bed tray. My hospital roommate has a hacking cough. And gas. And speaks in tongues with evangelical zeal.

I'll make it somehow, even though earplugs are out of the question. But how about these black-eyed peas?