BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Road rage has come to the Axel Middle School car pool line.

"Witnesses said Brown had ample time to stop. Going a speed of approximately five miles per hour, she aimed her Suburban at the smaller car and mowed it down as dozens of school children, including the victim's mother, watched helplessly."

-- Axel Rattler

After what happened to poor Jaylynn Cox, the driver of the Yugo, I feel lucky to be alive. Just the other day Morgana Crenshaw's mother gave me the finger.

"Out of my way, peasant!" Lulu Crenshaw yelled from her Lexus as she forced me into oncoming traffic. Something tells me the next seven years in the car pool line will be kind of awkward for Lulu and me.

Experts the world over are fretting about the decline of civility in modern life.

"Maybe it's hormone trouble," said my best friend, Brandi. Brandi, who tried to stab her ex-husband Lance on three separate occasions, knows a lot about hormones.

Whatever the excuse is, I'm fed up with maternal theatrics. Last year a woman started a brawl at the Arbor Day observance so her daughter could take home the biggest sapling. Another mother threw a fit over who was going to get to baby-sit the class gerbil over the summer break. And Crystal Brown threatened to kill herself if her daughter Brittnee didn't get the part of Blanche DuBois in "Streetcar."

As a result, a bunch of Axel kids are getting as spoiled as a carton of chicken parts left in the sun.

Cultural anthropologist Emily Zinfrang says this behavior is typical of modern women who, deprived of the spectacle of public hangings, make too much of car pool lines, first grade plays, and Little League games. Zinfrang should know. She spent six weeks in rehab last year after being in charge of the fifth grade Halloween party.

As mothers, we all want to do a good job. It's just that some of us are dead serious about it.

And killing others is not a good example for our children.

"At least we don't use the bathroom on the carpet like the Dallas Cowboys," Brandi said.

That's just it. When you've got the world on a string, why would you need to piss on anybody's parade?

Lulu Crenshaw's hormones must be out of whack. Why else would someone in a Lexus be so bad tempered? After all, Lulu shops at the most exclusive outlet stores, plays tennis at Cottonmouth, and has had her stretch marks lasered.

Maybe she's just a frustrated ex-weather girl. But if your husband is paying for the maid, the Chevis Regal, and a full-time baby-sitter, why should it bother any woman to be nothing more than a superfluous bit of fluff? I would jump at the chance.

"There's an existential angst in these women that would give Kafka the willies," Dr. Zinfrang said.

I understand their futile search for meaning. Like women everywhere I've decorated T-shirts, campaigned for Pat Robertson, and decoupaged the refrigerator.

Ultimately, I found my purpose behind a stylist's chair.

And I'd like to say I'm sorry to anybody I maimed in the car pool line on the road to personal fulfillment.