BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Sonny says when we first met, I was a horrible kisser. I stretched my lips across my teeth and rammed my mouth against his head. He says it was like trying to kiss a bear trap. Anyway, through patience and those treats dog trainers use, he taught me to relax my face muscles into the flaccid expression I have today.

Thus began my life as a sex goddess, with men lining up for blocks to pay a dollar for a kiss. Soon I had saved a hundred bucks. Enough for the double-knit two piece swimsuit with stitched-on daisies I had admired in the window at Leonard's.

Standing on the high dive at Twin Points, my long bleached-blond Korean hair piece blowing in the wind, I attracted catcalls from fishermen old enough to be my grandpa. "Hey, Lollita," they yelled, though I doubt they had ever read Nabokov.

My friends and I, on break from school, were just as wild as kids today. No different from the college sophomores who write PARTY NAKED in shoe polish on the side of the van (which can easily be changed to FART NAKED by spitting on your finger).

Though many women of my social standing are scandalized by what goes on at spring break, as a wife and mother, I have witnessed too many bodily functions to be shocked by anything spring breakers do. Of course, as a responsible adult, I warn young people of the hazards related to inadequate coverage of the body's various portals. "Why do you think I gave up playing pool in a thong bikini?" I say.

Last week, I made the scene at South Padre, hoping to catch some rays and get on MTV. The first day out, I was offered a beer on my morning stroll. Next thing I know, I'm sitting on a Garfield towel, taking Jello shots and trying to remember the words to "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly."

That evening my new friends from Michigan--Tyler, Seth and Justin--took me to see Vanilla Ice at Charlie's and made me an official member of their fraternity. The initiation required me to drink 10 Sex on the Beaches but Justin had his mother's credit card so I didn't have to pay. Then they left--I think with some girls from Baylor--and I had to find the way back to my condo on my own.

Seth, Tyler and Justin were probably sound asleep in their $350/night hotel room when the giant squid got me. Past the second sandbar where I had gone to wash the grit out of my swimsuit bottom. It only had to use two of it 12 foot long tentacles to render me unconscious.

Somehow I got to shore. A witness told authorities he declined to help because he assumed I was a pile of trash from a Russian tanker. Bulging in all the wrong places, despite my swimsuit's promise to make me look 10 pounds lighter in ten minutes, I was mistaken by others for a bloated tarpon, "too rotten to eat no matter how good the chef at the Sheraton is."

Finally rescuers came to my aid and performed CPR but--I guess because of my harrowing adventure--I reverted to the pre-Sonny grimace and caused a boy named Brandon's lip to bleed. (And he was about to have his picture made for rush.)

Seth, Justin and Tyler felt really bad about deserting me so they went to Matamoros and bought me a fake Big Johnson t-shirt. I was wearing it when MTV came. Look for me!