BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

When I got home from San Diego last week there was hell to pay. Sonny said if I'd meant to kill him, why didn't I just get a gun and pull the trigger. He was talking about the TV dinners I froze for him to eat while I was at the convention.

I'm sorry. I know the husband's the head but I just couldn't pass up the chance to hear Pat Robertson over at the Christian Coalition meeting. Besides, it's not everyday you get asked to be the official hairdresser to the Texas delegation at the Republican National Convention.

You shouldn't ask me to hide my light under a bushel, I told Sonny.

Born Again hairstyles are in demand these days. First I was up to my eyebrows in styling mousse fixing the hair of those darling girls in the Christian beauty pageant.

Their inner beauty was so refreshing. When I couldn't find my curling iron, they all held hands and prayed, and sure enough, it turned up under the front seat of the van.

After that everything went pretty smooth except for when one of the girls got accused of sabotaging another contestant's puppets right before the talent competition. Leg make-up took care of the scratches in time for them to parade in their evening gowns.

I've never met such dedicated people.

I sensed these mothers had sacrificed a lot on the chance their daughters could win. There was a constant onslaught of tears with everybody so keyed up. One mother even cried when she dropped her daughter's false eyelash in the barbecue sauce on a plate of ribs.

I feel like we all bonded through adversity.

A contestant's mother told me a terrible nightmare she had at the hotel. She went to heaven and her hair was some dingy color she had never seen--she's kept it bleached since junior high--and nobody knew who she was, even her husband. Which brings up an important question. What will we do about dark roots in heaven?

Even though it would hurt my business, I wish we could all be beautiful all the time. A kind heart won't get you into catalogue modeling if your front tooth's chipped and you have thunder thighs.

Somebody has to lose and the results can be devastating. The road to teenage promiscuity is paved with the broken hearts of disappointed pageant girls.

It's hard enough on the girls in secular pageants that are based on the fleshly concerns of the exterior body, like the one B. Don runs at Will Rogers. By the time they're all cried out, their hair's a gummy mess and they run a risk of going home with the first cowboy who'll buy them a margarita swirl at Billy Bob's.

At least they can run again in Mineral Wells or Muleshoe next year.

For the other poor girls, it's a double whammy. When you lose an inner beauty pageant, you're losing on your outsides and your insides too.