BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Guess who I saw in line at the drugstore yesterday. My best friend Brandi's ex-husband Lance, the heart surgeon who left her for his young receptionist. He was in the special VIAGRA ONLY line that went out the door and stretched halfway around the building. The huge demand for the new drug to treat impotence has stunned the nation.

"I'm surprised to see this many guys in a pharmacy," I said. "You know how men and cats hate to swallow pills."

"I haven't seen this many males since that pill for baldness came out," said the pharmacist. "You know--the one that can cause impotence."

I watched the men in line fluff and fondle their curls. Some had manes as long as Michael Bolton's. Others sported towering Afros. One guy had hair like Cosmo Kramer. My loins began to ache with yearning. These common men--termite inspectors and CPA's--looked as luscious and delectable as Fabio. But what good is hair if the rest of the equipment is on the blink? After all, hair is not exactly man's crowning glory.

On the way out I ran into Prof. Emily Zinfrang.

"Did you see all those guys buying impotence pills?" I asked.

"American males haven't exhibited this degree of collective behavior since leisure suits," she said. "It's an exciting time to be a cultural anthropologist. To witness a re-emergence of tribal identity, like the penis sheaths of the Amazon."

I hurried to the apartment Brandi has been sharing with a snake charmer and a mime since her divorce. She was setting fire to an effigy of her former husband and seemed glad to hear the news.

"So even with a nineteen year old trophy wife, Lance still can't rise and shine," she shouted above the roar of the fire.

"But his hair looks great," I yelled.

"And he tried to tell me it was all my fault," Brandi continued. "Because I put Limburger cheese on my stretch marks every night."

I know how she feels. My husband Sonny tries to convince me that my faded pink Garfield nightshirt is all that stands between us and a sex life that would make Marv Albert blush. That and my Butt Minimizer Elastic Sleep Garment [TM] and the pink foam rubber curlers I wear to bed.

"Darling, I want to stay beautiful just for you," I always say. Him and every other guy in the western hemisphere. Thank goodness science has delivered us from the days when a wife was blamed if her husband had a problem performing. She was too fat or too ugly or had spent too much time at the bowling alley. I enjoy smelling like a French whore just as much as the next girl but I don't want some human garbage truck expecting it of me.

I am often asked, "Vicki Charmaine, who do women dress for--men or other women?"

It depends. In my own case, I wear my Laura Ashley Easter dress to impress the sanctimonious bitches at church. But when I want to please Sonny, I wear a little vinyl number we ordered out of a catalogue.

In case you're wondering, Sonny resembles Barney Fife, only much more handsome. Like the deputy, he wears a uniform--that of the soda pop delivery man--which he removes only for bathing and "doing the gator." He and Barney have similar temperaments. Jittery, kind of excitable, which is conducive to pill-taking. Handfuls all day long, just in case.

I think it's sweet when men take pills to fix the parts of themselves that have seen better days. Bald, fat, impotent? There's a pill for every ill. Me, I just take Prozac and hardly notice anyway.