BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

My best friend, Brandi, and I were fixing our make-up in the ladies lounge at the Pick-up Line, talking about the revelations concerning Rick Rockwell, the "prize" in last week's "Who Wants to Marry A Multi-Millionaire." The 50 women grovelling before the unseen motivational speaker/comedian came on the same time as the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show which exposed a lot of dogs with the fur shaved off their rear-ends. And then there was the Republican presidential debate.

"I have to confess, it made me uneasy," I said, spreading blue shadow across my eyelid.

"Me too," Brandi said, even though she already told me she wished she had been at the mall the day they had the try-outs. Brandi's desperate for a millionaire husband ever since she caught her cardiologist hubby palpating the chest of his 18 year old receptionist. "Whenever I got too nauseated from watching 'Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire,' I clicked over to the Westminster show. But that made the dog throw-up. I finally turned on the debate," I said. "At least the candidates didn't have to get the drool wiped off their chins every 10 seconds. Ok, maybe they did, but at least nobody was leading them around on a leash, unlike those bitches."

"I know," said Brandi, blotting her lips. "If they thought they had trouble catching a man before this, just wait. No man wants another man's reject." She should know. She can hardly get a date.

"And nobody wants a loser who falls off the stage," I said, bitterly recalling the little one's plummet from the platform at that pancake breakfast. Just then, symbolically, one of my false eyelashes detached and drifted down among the cigarette butts and cockroach carcasses. "Did you notice how they asked the brides-to-be and the presidential hopefuls the same questions? Like, 'What would you do if you woke up and the house was a mess?'"

"And 'Should you tell your spouse about your past?'" Brandi said, darkening her big fake mole. "I thought it showed good taste when they interviewed the candidates BEFORE they took off their clothes for the swimsuit competition."

"Alan Keyes held his own," I said, sorting through the muck with a toothpick. "Could you believe all that spiteful backstabbing?"

"Then they come out in their wedding dresses, like no big deal," Brandi said. "It made me sad to realize only one of them could win. The others would have to go back to being governor or whatever."

"And they only gave them 30 seconds to plead their case. And that one goes, 'I know how to treat a man,'" I complained. "Finally, the show's almost over and they haven't even seen the big stud. All they find out is he likes to run along the beach--"

"Too bad there wasn't enough time to have him checked out by a vet," Brandi said.

"He looked pretty healthy, though. At least somebody had groomed his hair," I said, spraying a cloud of AquaNet. "Then it was time to choose."

"It just tore me up." Brandi wiped away a tear. "They looked so pathetic standing there with their rumps exposed to millions of people. They were slobbering and acting nervous. I just knew he'd pick the poodle."

I knew he'd pick the blond.