Wasting Makeup

When I was in high school (continuing into my 20's) my girlfriends and I always ritualized the motions we went through in order to get ready for a date. "Putting on ones face" was a euphemism for putting on makeup---you know, foundation, eye shadow, blush and mascara---all the things required to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If the date was made during the week, countless hours were spent talking about what should be worn, etc. The entire group participated in this rather juvenile behavior. If the date turned out to be a jerk who stood a friend up, we were there for that, too. We waited with the member of the group who was going on the date (or not). If the guy said he would pick her up at 7:00 and it was going on 8:30, it was time to pack it in and forget about Mr. Wondeful showing up. It was still early enough to go out and have a girl's night though. We had a quaint turn of phrase for those who held out until the last possible moment. We called it "wasting makeup". Most of us back then were on an allowance (or later when we had jobs, they were of the restaurant or department store variety) and money was scarce. It seemed impractical to waste good makeup on a guy who was not going to show up.

When I got into the spanking scene, I caught myself on several occasions engaging in the same behavior I used to loathe myself for as a teenager. Most of the men who play with me have to travel fairly long distances to get together with me and sometimes, for whatever reason, we don't connect as we'd planned. I have only been stood up on two occasions in almost six years of doing this and it's a record I'm proud of. Both times, I sat and waited either by the phone or in a restaurant until it was obvious nothing was going to happen that day. And I always found it a bit sad that good makeup had to be wasted that way.

This week, I had two play dates planned. One for Wednesday and one for Thursday. Both of my dates cancelled due to the horrible weather we were having. Wednesday was particularly disappointing as I felt it was a waste of not only good makeup, but a nice job of applying it as well. I had outdone myself in that department. However, there was always the next day and I sort of foolishly felt optimistic. I made plans with the Thursday date about a week before and we had a couple of very enthusiastic chats about all the fun things we were going to do. Imagine my surprise when I don't hear a peep from him. Cigi and I had something that popped up that morning that had to be taken care of. I had neglected to get his phone number from him but he had mine. I thought as it got to be late and I still wasn't at the restaurant where we'd planned to meet, he would call and ask what was up. But he never called. I didn't hear from him at all that day. Again, I was disappointed because you know, makeup doesn't grow on trees.

Yesterday, he left me an offline message apologizing because a storm had left him without power and he'd had to purchase a generator (not a cheap buy, I can assure you). We made plans to meet after the Holidays. Hopefully, no makeup will get wasted then.

So ladies, I guess the lesson to be learned from this is that just because your date stood you up is no reason to let perfectly good makeup go to waste. Call some friends and have dinner and a movie. Lift each other's spirits when it happens because it can be a tremendous blow to the ego, especially if you never hear from the guy again. If you're lucky, while you're out tending to your wounded pride, you just might meet someone who will make that makeup job worth the trouble.

How Was YOUR Week?

I have mentioned before that I live in an apartment. There are twelve apartments in my building. We all manage to live together relatively peacefully (when we aren't backing into each other's cars, that is). Now I want to warn the reader right now that this is probably going to turn into a rant and probably won't have anything (or very little) to do with spanking.


The week got off to a pretty bad start for us. We discovered that Cigi is going to have to have knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus in her left knee. The surgeon assured us her condition wasn't serious, but the surgery would alleviate her pain and allow her to return to work. Well, OK, I can live with that.


Tuesday we were leaving to meet a new spanko friend for breakfast when we accidentally backed into the car of another person who lives in the building. Now because I don't drive, part of my job is to be Cigi's extra pair of eyes. She was clear as a bell so she began to ease out of the parking spot. Next thing I knew BAM! We had hit another car. Cigi got out of the car, apologizing profusely. The young man seemed pretty laid back about the whole thing (probably because he knew he was at least partly at fault). The two exchanged insurance cards and phone numbers and realized that they both had insurance with the SAME company. I don't know what will happen now.


Wednesday Cigi informed me that she didn't want to do a big Thanksgiving dinner. We have what's commonly referred to as a "galley kitchen"; meaning maybe two people can fit in it at the same time and might be able to cook a meal in it if they time their turns and whatnot so as not to bump into each other. Needless to say, I was disappointed. We had done the big Thanksgiving dinner last year (the first year since her cancer was diagnosed that she felt like doing the "big spread") and it had turned out very nicely. If memory serves me, we only got in each other's way a couple of times. But since I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, I hid my disappointment and asked her what she would like instead. She wanted a pot roast. OK, no problem there. I love pot roast no matter what day of the year it is. Of course, when I woke up the next morning and smelled all the turkeys cooking in the neighboring apartments, my disappointment returned momentarily. It was soon gone however as we sat down to a wonderful meal.


Friday was what is commonly referred to in retail circles as Black Friday. It usually means that a store will be profitable for the year if sales are high enough. Us retail workers call it that for another reason. First of all, I had to get up out of a warm bed at 4:15 because I had to be at work at 5:30. I work in a home improvement store in a strip mall...a strip mall that contains a Target store and is banked on one side by a Best Buy store. You can imagine what the lines looked like. Later, we learned that a man in New York had been trampled to death by "out of control" shoppers at a Wal-Mart there. Shoppers reportedly stepped over the man's body to get inside the store to shop, despite the fact that police had closed the store because it was a crime scene. The greed of people at this time of year never fails to make me shake my head.


Sunday we had our first snow of the year. We had five inches of accumulation. The plows and salt trucks didn't get out until Monday morning. When I went to work, having to take the long way because of two accidents on the street where I live, we discovered that many of the main roads hadn't been plowed or salted yet, despite being designated as emergency snow routes. The next morning, a front page article in our local paper patted the Department Of Public Works for the "great" job they did with the snow. It was five inches of snow during which there were dozens of accidents and three people died. I am cringing at what will happen when that first blizzard hits...the kind that dumps a foot and a half of snow on us. It's coming, believe me.


After having a crummy day at work, during with countless of customers yelled at me because we ran out of shovels, all I wanted to do was go home and take a soak in a hot bath. But I had laundry to do. We stopped at the store to get stuff to make spaghetti for supper and got some gas. It took over an hour because the store and gas station were crowded with people all acting like they were caught in Donner Pass. It was five inches of snow, people. Get a grip. You aren't going to get snowed in with no way to get supplies and groceries.


When we got home, Cigi put the food on and I got a load of laundry together. When I got downstairs, this was what I saw:

I went back upstairs and ate my dinner in silence. All of the planets were aligned against me, it seemed. Boy, I hope next week is better.