BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

There I was--sitting on top of the world. Sonny had surprised me with a five carat cubic zirconium and I had lost three pounds. I was overflowing with joy and magnanimity and good vibes.

Then I listened to my voice mail.

"You look like a manatee." That's all. The message which--once I saw the picture of the manatee in Franklin's Book of Weird Looking Creatures--would undo four years of psychotherapy.

"But manatees are our friends," said my high school chum Arlene who wears size 13 shoes and hasn't had a make-over since our senior prom.

"You're my friend too," I said. "But that doesn't mean I want to look like you."

"Don't flatter yourself," said Arlene. "Everybody looks like some kind of animal."

Maybe she was right--because at that moment she reminded me of a vulture, a hideously grotesque vulture, circling overhead, waiting for me to croak from hurt feelings. Willing to knock me off herself with a few well-aimed insults, if necessary.

Arlene was a teuthologist, which is not a dentist, and she had yet to find a decent job. It was one reason she was so crabby. Don't ask me why she majored in Squids. Before I was through, I would be reminding her of Architeuthis, the creature she did her dissertation on. An animal she had never seen in real life--until she crossed me. The pale blue eye. The angry beak. The writhing tentacles. The sickening stench. Why be a wimpy sea monster, I figured, when you can be a 60 foot squid?

"You look like an alligator," I sneered. It was the meanest thing I could think of, with her prominent teeth and greenish skin. Arlene shrank away in shame. I felt a twinge of guilt but it didn't last long.

I was too busy obsessing about the voice mail message. I needed reassurance. "Do I look like a manatee?" I asked my husband Sonny.

"No. You look just fine," he said. Sonny thinks the manatee is an insect, the praying mantis, to be precise. But I felt better, just the same.

I asked my preacher, who judges many of our local pageants, whether he thought I resembled a manatee.

"No, you're a lot cuter," said Brother Bob, known for taking the path of least resistance. I wanted to believe him. Perhaps he had noticed the missing three pounds which made it possible for me to squeeze into my leopard-print cat suit with the heart-shaped cut-out at the bust.

I posed before the mirror in the church vestibule. At least I had managed to hoist myself onto dry land, I thought, noting how miniscule my forelimbs looked compared to my imposing girth. I thought of the Cherry O'Cream pie I had turned down Christmas Eve and how I had refrained from eating all the candy in the children's stockings the way I used to.

If it weren't for that darn voice mail, I would be feeling like Florence Henderson, who has kept herself up so well all these years. She deserves to feel good about how terrific she looks. I'm sure no one has ever told Florence Henderson she looks like an animal. A parakeet maybe. But not a gigantic torpedo-shaped mammal.

It's not that I don't like animals. In fact, before I got that call I felt like a Dandie Dinmont Terrier, the kind that can communicate with humans. Not only did I have an expressive face, but I had lost three pounds at a time when most people (and dogs!) gained weight.

Like I said, I was on top of the world.

A manatee! Who could be so cruel? My mother? My daughter? A rival in the Goat Head Mall beauty pageant? Was my husband Sonny trying to drive me insane like Rex Harrison did to Doris Day in Midnight Lace?

"You look like a manatee." Maybe it was intended as a compliment--a tribute from some wildlife group. Don't get me wrong. I love manatees. I wish I had one in my bathtub, although I realize it wouldn't be large enough. They are so precious and cute!

I was just sort of hoping the three pounds would be more obvious.