Complicated Lives....26

Halloween 1980

A complicated ruse…

It was Halloween 1980 and I had just turned 10. My friends were wearing really shiny lip gloss with a roller ball, but I wasn’t allowed to have any. According to Mama “only cheap trashy girls wear lip gloss” I got Tinkerbell stick or pot lip gloss, it wasn’t very shiny and was kind of like chapstick. I was already unpopular, I was a little nerd girl, AND my lips weren’t shiny enough!! I was mad and plotting!!

I was desperate; I needed to outdo some of the lip gloss girls. One of them was already wearing makeup!! Something had to be done…I needed a way to get some mascara AND eye shadow. I thought and thought…I worked on idea after idea from August until October. Finally!! I knew what I needed to do!! I had a fool proof plan to score some make up! My birthday was coming up I requested some eye shadow and mascara because I wanted to be a gypsy for Halloween!!! It worked!!! I got Revlon mascara and Revlon Green eye shadow. Neither Mama nor I knew what to do with the mascara. She thought it went in your eyebrows, I was pretty sure it went on your eyelashes. We both knew what to do with the eye shadow.

I was giddy!! I couldn’t wait to try it out I had to ‘practice’ for Halloween. I greedily opened the mascara because it was so mysterious. That brush was wicked! The brush was scary, it terrified me! Mama and I stared at it and decided with a scary brush it MUST go in your brows! I tried the brow thing and looked like a cave man! Somehow this plow blade looking thingy had to go near my eye. I worked and worked, I finally figured it out. I looked like Mrs. Howell from Gilligan’s Island!! OMG! I would have to practice often! Yay! I was definitely going to need to wear Mama’s rouge and lipstick too. I was IN! Or so I thought. I tried out my look at school one day…I had bright red rouge on my cheeks in circles, bright pink lipstick badly applied, eye shadow and pokey lashes. One girl in my class said, “looking good kid!”, everyone else laughed out loud. I was crushed!

Back to the drawing board….

While I was dejectedly playing with play doh, we got a surprise phone call from my Aunt Effie! Aunt Effie was the MOST cosmopolitan person I knew. She had been to far off places like, Illinois, California and foreign countries too! Aunt Effie was at the nearby airport and would be to our house in an hour! Yay!! Aunt Effie to the rescue! She would fix my make-up woes!!

I was wrong…

I proudly showed my Aunt Effie my make-up conquest. She glared at Mama, and told her I was too young! I felt positively double-crossed! I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. She confiscated my make-up for HERSELF and announced that she would use her make-up on me. I was furious! My beloved make-up dissolved before my eyes.

Halloween night…

She tied a scarf around my head, and drew a star and moon on my cheek….I was deflated. At least I got some caramels.

I got my first real make-up set 2 birthday’s later and was finally allowed to wear it in public. The mascara was no longer scary and there was even a green eye shadow in the set. I didn’t look like a moron because I had discovered magazines. Aunt Effie left a Cosmopolitan!! Now to get something with a plunging neckline yay cleavage! ….. J