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.