The Soapbox: False Eyelashes, False Hope

For the last six months since releasing my poetry book "Air Kisses" about being a single girl in a dysfunctional dating world, I have taken the time to explore the inner workings of single life, married life, and relationships in general. I have come to realize that the topic is of interest to such a varied audience and feel I have found a way to write about these woes that always inspires a laugh in otherwise not-so-funny situations.

This I do know. Every single girl I have met is either in search of her fantasy man or she is in the process of creating him in her own mind. I found mine. My fantasy man. It didn't work out, but nevertheless the thang was found. Most of the women he preferred to me had long hair, leaner bellies, perfect things, and all the other stuff that don't go hand-in-hand with being a midlife menopausal Mom.

Not that I mind being the latter at all, for I feel comfortable and happy in my own skin. However, after listening ad nauseam to my "single girl in a dysfunctional world" Bible podcasts and the like, I realize that maybe I may need to put in a little extra effort to attract Mr. Right. Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong.

After all, there are 54 available men to every 637 available women. Of those 54, if you take away those who don't actually like girls and those who don't have any ambition, you end up with about 19 available men in the subject group, I am told.

Therefore, I thought today I would start doing a better job of being found by one of the 19. I thought maybe it would be a good day to glue on some false eyelashes for my jam packed day of business, just to say – "Hey world, I’m still here! With these lashes enhancing my God-given beauty, it should now be clearly evident that I would be the perfect wife!"

I didn't have any lash glue, but I did find some glitter glue in my craft tackle box so I figured it would do the trick. I got those lashes in place, brushed away any signs of glitter, and popped on my best red dress. Dang…I looked almost as good as one of my fantasy man's salsa chicks.

Everything was going ok until lunch time when I felt my left eyelash fall off and brush over my cheek, dropping to the ground. I pulled an Ellen Griswold as fast as possible by ripping off the right one when everyone was chatting among themselves. I flicked it off of me as fast as a piece of burned turkey carcass.

It flung through the air and landed perfectly in my huge open purse. Great. What am I going to do with one right eyelash retrieved from the bottom of a purse? I had my contacts in, so I really couldn't see as well as with my midlife glasses to peruse the floor for the left eyelash.

Oh well. Let bygones be bygones. It's just fake hair that looks like a centipede. Who really cares?

I continued socializing and carrying on multi-million dollar real estate transactions as if nothing had happened. Nobody seemed to notice that my entire former eyelashes were missing, or if they did, they weren't fazed.

I continued to eat my seafood gumbo, too. It was like nothing had ever happened. The gumbo was the best appetizer on the menu. It had shrimp, and grainy oysters that were rich in zinc and you know what they say about that. Perhaps oysters were a better source of finding Mr. Fantasy than false eyelashes. All of a sudden, as I was enjoying my gumbo, I washed down some of the crab legs with a splash of ice tea only to realize that that little furry piece of crab that was crawling down my esophagus was my other eyelash. I could feel its hairy little tentacles and wondered if I choked on it and died today would they find glitter on my sphincter and what would the pathologist possibly write into my autopsy report: "Death by left lash extension."

They say these lash extensions are washable and reusable. But I think I’ll take a hard pass even if things work themselves out in the end by settling for being just an ordinary menopausal midlife woman who can pass for 29 in her own mind if she wants to…but she doesn't.

Being a single girl in a dysfunctional world has its hidden benefits that I have come to enjoy, but the wearing of salsa-girl glued on lashes shall never be in my top ten.