BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

I just put the finishing touches on the article I'm submitting to the Baptist Standard. Writing "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry White Woman" helped me deal with my feelings about the holidays. I thought I was going to have a meltdown after all the ungrateful wretches wolfed down my Christmas buffet and left without so much as running the Dust Buster.

Next year you can find me in Uncle Ed's bomb shelter from November 1 to January 10. (Don't worry, by then it will be a fully equipped free-standing beauty shop.) My new year's resolution is to retreat once and for all from the slings and arrows of the Christmas hubbub.

Last year my resolution was to spend New Year's '96 on an island in the Caribbean but, as you can see, that didn't happen.

Sometimes, however, these things work out, if you put your mind to it. Two years ago, for example, I resolved to get out of jail by Valentine's Day, which I did. (It was all a big mix up--the warrant was for a different Vicki Bunch.)

The key to new year's resolutions is to make them manageable. Start with little things you can change, like resolving to brush your teeth every day. Then work up to things like running for Speaker of the House.

And don't browbeat yourself if you screw up. Plain old browbeating doesn't accomplish a thing. If hitting ourselves in the head with a baseball bat did any good, we'd all be millionaires.

With that in mind, here's the rest of my list for '97 which you can copy, if you want to. It's stuff you ought to do anyway.

1) Get somebody to haul off the stove that's been out on the front porch since Aunt Phoebe died.

2) Bury chicken.

3) Good posture makes you look fifty pounds lighter.

4) Call up Destinee's teacher and cuss her out about the Christmas play.

5) Have a romantic candlelight supper.

6) See the play, "Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Health Class."

7) Buy week's worth of underwear for everybody in family.

8) Drive brother Jimmy Ed down to TEC and sign his butt up.

9) Lose thirteen pounds, one for each month since I slipped on that prune in Hyper Fruit.

10) Tape secret video of Sonny with my sister.

Making resolutions is the difference between man and beast. Monkeys don't plan ahead. They're terrible at that.

Take winning Mrs. Cobb County, for example. It took a $5,000 reclamation project. It took days and nights of crying my head off.. It took threatening to beat the tar out of the other contestants.

A little willpower is all it takes. It helps to create a system of punishments to enforce your resolutions. For example, to punish myself for not being on the Caribbean, I'm making myself watch religious broadcasting several hours a day. It's not the electric chair, but it's the next best thing.

Make '97 the year you take the bull by the horns. Best wishes from all the folks here in Axel!