BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

How ironic that El Nino, named for the birthday boy, is being blamed for lackluster Christmas sales. Merchants at Goat Head Mall have slashed everything to ROCK BOTTOM PRICES in a last ditch attempt to make this a memorable season. According to economists, in the midst of climatic calamity, people don't know whether to buy snow shoes or swim fins, much less Old Navy or DKNY.

Business is off at the beauty shop too. Misty Dawn hasn't sold a pair of light bulb earrings in nearly a decade and not one client has scheduled a mistletoe facial. Cobwebs are growing on the hair dryers. All you have to do is look around to tell no one gives a hoot about their hair.

Is this the apocalypse or what?

According to the Axel Rattler, there's been a drastic increase in the number of alcohol related shopping cart accidents. Mayor Stubby Bean left his own mother in a shopping cart overnight on the parking lot of the Winn Dixie. Several unattended children have toppled into seasonal displays while their drunken parents searched for the frozen pie crusts.

"I don't know which is worse," said Sheriff Tubbs. "The babies falling or the fact their mamas would use a frozen crust."

People are confused. They're searching everywhere for answers. Folks who make their living prognosticating have tuned their antennae to El Nino's vibes. Even animals, known for their 6th sense about earthquakes and ghosts and stuff, are acting extra weird.

Things are strange all over.

That's why I wasn't surprised when self-proclaimed psychic and holy woman Loraine Fontaine showed up in Axel the other day.

Her son Jasper, who has been living with us since July, is Elf #9 in the Christmas pageant and wasn't too interested in going back to cult headquarters with his mom. But with this El Nino deal going on, Heavens to Betsy followers demanded to see their Head Honcho, the cute little guy whose holiness was revealed in a frog's entrails.

I've got news for them--the leader of the pack is now a red-blooded American boy who break-dances, eats Vienna sausage, and likes a girl named Cheyenne. Once he began living in a wholesome family environment, Jasper quickly acquired a preference for baggy pants and skate boarding over religious mumbo jumbo. (If only certain tv preachers shared the same insight!)

He learned to do the things required of boys--smoking, eating pork rinds, cussing. And more importantly, he became a Bunch through and through--a suave dresser, a master procrastinator, a junk food savant--just like his new dad Sonny.

And like Sonny, he doesn't give a rat's ass about the portent of El Nino. All he cares about is getting a ferret from Santa Claus.

It's the holiday season, and I try to be charitable. I wanted to believe Loraine when she said she was here to wish her son a Heavens to Betsy Xmas. But it doesn't take a Psychic Friend to see she was up to no good when she showed up with a couple of her brainwashed goons, the former bodybuilders whose shaved heads belied their devotion to the Way of Betsy.

"We're here for the brat," they announced.

"Oh, you must mean the child, el nino," I said, as the heavens split open in a deluge of biblical proportions, causing the goons and Loraine to make haste for the VW bus in which they had arrived. The last I saw of them was their Heavens to Betsy bumper sticker.

It rained a lot. When it let up, Sonny and I went to the mall and bought a ferret.