The Art of Getting Ready

Showcase Magazine August 2009

He Said

There must a slow club made up of women only when it

comes to doing make up and hair. This is sort

of a pet peeve; however, I have resigned myself to

the fact that there is nothing I can do about it. I am

talking about the fact that it takes you hours and

hours to get ready. You always look pretty (points

gained) even at your worse (I take that back. You have no worse).

So what goes on in that bathroom of

yours for days? It is like you are building a tunnel

to the South Pole. There are machines roaring, things

dropping, hisses of air that goes on forever, quietness

for 20 minutes at the time, and then I go in

there and there are tools that I have never encountered

before in my life. Scissor looking tools,

pencils of all shapes and sizes, dozens of cans of spray

things, soaps, little fluffy things that look like

sponges, boxes of Kleenex, and bottles of all shapes and

sizes. There are brushes, both big ones and

small ones. There is one contraption that looks like it

is made of metal with holes in the end. There are

many kinds of hair dryers, 240 tubes of lip stick, and

something called lip gloss along with several

hundred bottles of nail polish and a couple of bottles

of polish remover and cotton balls. The odor is a

mixture of tire lube and Windex. How you can stand in

there with that smell is foreign to me but

amazingly, every time you come out of that room, you

look radiant and smell as fresh as a daisy.

By this time (at least two hours) I am sleepy, worn out,

tired, or into a good show on TV.

Just let me say I would rather wait two hours and have you,

than wait 12 minutes and have a.....

well, you know what I mean.



She Said


Men! If you didn’t have us women to explain everything

to you, I sincerely believe that you would lie

in bed forever until someone came in, got you up,

dressed you, fed you breakfast, put you in your car,

put the gear shift in drive, and sent you off to work.

Did you say a SLOW club? I can work circles

around you so let’s compare notes. I get up at 5:00 a.m.

and work out on my elliptical for thirty

minutes after walking and feeding Sophie. Then I take a

shower and wash my hair followed by

applying makeup, drying and styling my hair. I listen

to the news while I’m getting ready just to keep

up with what’s going on locally, nationally, and globally.

After I get dressed, I’m ready to cook

breakfast and pack lunches while planning what to

fix for dinner. When all of this is done, I’m ready to

put in a full day of work and usually tutor after school.

As far as all of those contraptions, products, and noises

that go along with making myself presentable,

go crawl back into your cave, Mars. Let’s take a look

at man “tools”. When you build a cabinet (well,

not you) or wax the car (not you) or paint a room (not you either),

you need tools to get the job done.

Let’s try this: I’ll forgo all electrical appliances,

“hundreds” of bottles of makeup, and give up

exercising if you promise not to complain about my looks,

weight gain, and frizzy hair. Of course that

means all things electrical will take a vacation: the

stove, microwave, T.V., and computer (particularly

no access to Facebook). I hope you won’t mind wearing

wrinkled clothes because the iron is another

appliance that I use daily.

Weighing in on Dieting

He Said She Said Showcase July 2009

He Said

She came in a couple of weeks ago and said we need

to go on a diet. I knew not to say what I was

thinking, but I said it anyway. “ My assumption

is you want to lose weight , so we, meaning you

and I have to go on a diet”. That is correct ,

she said. We need to go on a diet together so it

want be so hard for one of us that is not eating

to have to watch the other one eat what they want.

In her mind that makes perfectly good sense. In my

mind this is the beginning of a train wreck. Which

one are WE going on this time? We are going on

Weight Watchers. O.K. How does that one work?

This is the easiest diet to go on she said.

All you have to do is eat anything you want as

long as you stay within your allotted amount of points.

Do I get to choose how many?, I ask. No it goes by the

weight system. You weigh about two hundred and fifteen

pounds, so you can have 26 points a day.

I figure about one point for each items gives me 26 items

to eat each day, yeah , I can probably handle this diet.

No, she says. All food items have points , so everything

you eat adds up to your total amount of points you can eat

each day. Like a hamburger plain is 8 points. A Big Mac is

thirteen points.

Good I can have two Big Macs for lunch. That is fine she

says as long as you don't eat breakfast or dinner.

Who decides my points? Your weight decides, she says.

So if I weighed 300 pounds I could have more points.

Yes she said, but you want to lose weight, not gain weight.

If I can have anything I want to eat and just count points,

count me in . Who keeps up with the points, I ask. You do, she says.

Even better I say. I never was that good in math anyway.


She Said

I do my best with him. He is almost getting to be

impossible to work with. I am not complaining,

mind you, but men including my man, do not have a

clue about diets. I tried to explain to him the

other day about the weight watchers system of

keeping points and losing weight. Of course he wants

to make a joke about it and I just went along with him.

I am watching my points and I am right on track. I am

afraid that each day when I ask him what he ate , he

says a sandwich. It probably is two sandwiches and

some candy. I don't see him getting thinner. If he

tells me he is not hungry at night I assume he has

sneeked out and had a meal somewhere else. He uses

the excuse that he can' t do math that well and I

send him to work with a calculator and a weight

watchers food wheel. I really don't think this is

going to work for him, however, it helps me stay

on my diet, I don't have to cook as much, and

since he is playing along, he is not always

asking me to go to Bubba's for a milk shake or

banana split every night. Sometimes you just have

to let them think they are making all the decisions

to get what you want. I mean I would never do that ,

but I know girls who do. Next time you see him out,

ask him if he is gaining weight. That will fix him.