BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

What you don't know can't hurt you. That's the theory behind a new business which supplies ironclad fibs for people cheating on a spouse. Writer Shelley Emling told all about Ace Alibi last week in USA Today.

The company provides invitations to nonexistent conferences and receipts from places you are supposed to have been. It takes incoming calls from your spouse and relays the messages to you. Ace Alibi advertises on the Web and has received thousands of inquiries from cheaters around the world. Services start at $25.

Owner John Watson told Emling, "I simply don't believe a family should be destroyed over two or three nights of madness."

I agree. What's a little weekend fling compared to all the years Sonny and I have spent yoked together like two miserable oxen?

It's better not to know. When I see Sonny's soda pop truck parked at Krystal's XXX for hours at a stretch I tell myself he's making a big delivery. And when I find a hot pink stain on the collar of his soda pop uniform, I like to think an Ol' Red blew up in Sonny's face. What good does it do to cry your eyes out and get all puffy over somebody who's got about as much control over himself as a Chihuahua at stud?

This week Sonny's at a soda pop drivers' convention in Paris, France. I got a teeny bit suspicious when I called his hotel, Le Gay Paree, and he wasn't in. But right away he called back and explained that he had been on a field trip to the art museum with the other drivers. "We were looking at the pretty pictures by . . . uh, Jock Cousteau . . . and Ralph Lauren . . . and some other guy," he said.

He misses me so much. I could tell he was on the verge of tears. He tried to talk his boss into letting me go to France with him but the boss said Sonny wouldn't get any work done if I was there--with all those romantic vibes in Paris. Which is probably right.

Much as married couples may hate it, sometimes work has to come first.

That's what I was thinking when I booked a deluxe room at the Brown Parrot in Las Vegas for the International Hair Convention next month. Sonny asked if he could go but I said he would be bored out of his mind with all the workshops and debates.

Plus, we have a tight schedule. Cocktails as soon as we get there, a dinner dance and, the next morning, a bus trip to the Grand Canyon. We're seeing some great shows--Buddy Hackett, Joan Rivers and Soupy Sales. I can't wait.

Sonny will return from Paris all cultured and French-acting, with an accent and a goatee. It will be like having a totally new husband. And I'll come back from Vegas with a new hair-do and some exotic dance numbers that I've seen on-stage. Sonny loves to watch me perform.

Of course, I could hire a detective and find out where he really is. I could catch him with another woman, take their picture and plaster it on the front page of the "Axel Rattler." But what would be the good in that? It would just cause a big hubbub.

Plus, then Sonny wouldn't bring me a souvenir and the ones from Oklahoma are really cute.