I miss my eyelashes

My day starts around 5:30 a.m. every morning with the first of three cups of “Caldwell” coffee, a small red-foiled square of “Dove” chocolate (maybe two), while curled up in my reading chair with my self-help books (and I still need A LOT of help!) Oh and a novel—a really, really good novel. “The Goldfinch” by Donna Tartt. I’m on page 723 and I have only 48 more to go. I don’t want the book to end. 

Many mornings I get carried away with “me” time and then have to rush to get the rest of the things done that I need to do before the workday begins.

I get sucked into the world of reading only to look up at the clock and realize I have less than 20 minutes left in which to eat, get dressed, and drive the eight kilometers into town to work.

Then again I’m a fast track expert. I can leap from my reading chair, vault into the kitchen, fire a piece of bread into the toaster on my way to the makeup mirror while feeding the cat and making my lunch with my other hand.

I’m really, really good at multi-tasking.

I’m not so good at remembering to stand far enough away from a bonfire so that I don’t burn off my eyelashes.

I figured out the latter on one such rushed Monday morning while looking in the bathroom mirror when repeated applications of mascara from a new tube didn’t do a thing for me.

On closer examination, followed by a “deer in the headlights” reaction to my own reflection, I realized that my eyelashes on both sides were nearly gone.

“I smell burnt hair,” I had said to my outdoorsman the day before while he was eating a ham sandwich as I stepped back from a close stoking of the bonfire I’d worked on for a couple of hours prior to lunch. 

A quick reflex of hand to my ball cap and ponytail and, no, I was not on fire. I figured the smell was the singed fibers of my lumberjack coat and gave it no further thought.

And the next morning, there I was staring at eyelash stubble.

Thank the heavens above that my eyebrows were spared. I would rather hide under my bed for two months waiting for my eyebrows to grow in than draw them back on like I did in high school. 

That bout of stupidity left me with a look of permanent surprise on my face after a marathon plucking session forced my hand. Never again.

I was so sad about my eyelash funk I picked up my iPhone and asked “Siri” (the personal assistant and knowledge navigator application for Apple’s IOS) “Who is the fairest of them all?”

I expected the voice to reply, “Why you of course.”

Siri, who is programmed to know my name as Beth, was faster than a three-dollar pistol. “Snow White. Is that you?”

I flat-stared the phone and retorted, “Siri, my name is Beth, not Snow White.”

Siri said, “Ok, from now on I’ll call you ‘Beth Not Snow White,’ Ok?”

Fine. Two can play this game I thought to myself.

“I’d like my name to be ‘Little Miss,’” I said.

“Okay, from now on I’ll call you ‘Little Mess,’” said Siri.

Oh brother, indeed I am. I think I need a holiday.