Linda G Hill’s  Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt:  “butter.”

When I was in my late teens  I went in for one of those makeovers at one of the high end department stores at our Mall.

I was pretty excited because I loved makeup, plus this was the late 70’s and the sky was the limit as far as colors and how to use them so I saw it as a chance to have a little fun with my awkward look.

I took my seat in the chair and there I was surrounded by lights and pretty people and I was this close to not looking like a turd in the punchbowl anymore. Needless to say I was very excited about that!

The salesgirl peered into my face.

She bit her lip.

She had the same look on her face that my Doctor had when I fell off my bike and bashed the side of face in and told him it didn’t hurt, but I couldn’t feel it or move it either-  and then she called over another sales associate and said:

” She has such a yellow greenish  complexion. How do we fix that? ”

I was pretty embarrassed, I mean. I sounded like a bruise.

But a sale is a sale and those girls went to work.

They ‘fixed’ my skin coloring by blending two different shades of liquid makeup and then slathering all over my face. When they were finished I felt like a little kernel of popped corn drenched in butter.

At the time I didn’t realize that what I looked like a cadaver that required a lot of ‘work’ because of decomp.  The difference was, if I had done that kind of a makeup job on a corpse, I would have been fired. I looked awful. I was a million times worse looking then before they had started.

In addition to that, I went from having a medium tan complexion ( I’m half Filipina ) to having a complexion that you could compare to an uncooked hot dog.

The result was: I was fixed. 

I was afraid to move my head for fear that everything would slide off.

But they weren’t finished. Oh no. Not by a long shot.

The salesgirls had a little conference and came back told me that I should probably dye my hair because it wouldn’t ‘work’ with my makeup.

I didn’t by the makeup, I didn’t dye my hair. I didn’t say that their sales pitch was a pretty crappy way to treat a person.

I just went home and put the mirror  on my vanity into the closet and the ones I had hung up for decoration in the living room into storage.

I still don’t have any mirrors in my house except for the one in the bathroom.

I am painfully aware of what I look like without one.