Making up at Christmas

My wife and I have been happily married for almost twelve years now, and we've both been able to roll with the punches pretty well, and balance each other off. Of course, like every successful relationship, there have been many learning curves and compromises along the way, and that brings me to the subject of today's post.

Make-up.

No, not that mutual-apology-followed-by-torrid-kissing-and-other-indoor-games type of make-up, I speak of the kind applied to the face by a fair amount of women and to a lesser, more disturbing degree, some men.

During our first real Christmas together (we had one before that, but it was shortly after I came to my senses and re-united with Jeanne after a three month hiatus, but that's another long story for another day), I did what most respectable mates would do, and asked my lovely fiancee what she would like for christmas. She listed a couple of things, then dropped the real bombshell on me:

"I really like to have make-up in my stocking".

"um, what?"

"You know, mascara, lipstick, foundation... make-up".

"Oh, thank god. For a minute, I thought you meant mascara, lipstick... wait a minute, what? What's going on, where am I, I feel a bit dizzy."

"C'mon, it's not that big of a deal, I just really like it."

"But, my sweet darling, why would you ever think I would know what to pick out for make-up, I'm a 31-year old bachelor. What if I pick out something horrible, and you end up looking like Jack Nicholson as The Joker from the first Batman movie?"

"You'll do just fine."

I could tell that she wanted this quite a bit, and being the giving soul that I am, I reluctantly agreed to do my best.

So, the following Saturday, after a brief spying trip to her make-up bag, off to Wal-Mart I went, because at least I could pretend to be in Wal-Mart for fishing gear or duct tape or something. I went to the 24-hour one, really early in the morning, I did NOT want a big audience.

First, I went and put a fishing pole and duct tape in my cart, then circled my cart around the area of the beauty supply aisles, noticing how many of them had make-up in them. I was in trouble. I straightend myself up, told myself that a lot of guys shopped for make-up for their significant others, especially at Christmas time, and dove right in.

Holy cow!

Maybelline, Cover Girl, Revlon, organic choices, some sort of physician's brand, teeny-bopper sections, each with rows and rows of color and texture choices, yikes! Okay, well I recognize the Maybelline brand, let's start there.

Mascara & eye-lining pencils. Very black, soft black, medium black, not black at all, fine lines, lengthening and defining, non-clumping, free mirror, oh boy!

Foundation. Let's see, is she more of an ivory, classic ivory, natural ivory, tan, blush? Ah, here we go, buff natural, that's kind of like naked, and that can't be bad.

"Excuse me sir, do you need any help?"

Crap. "uh, no, I'm all set, I'm just doing a research project on which companies do animal testing with their products. Thank you though."

She walks away, that strange look on her face. Okay, where was I?

Lipstick. Well, I could go for pink, let me pink, make me pink, pink of me, party pink, pink me up, pink wink or pinkalicious. Here we go, almost nude, another excellent choice!

Nail polish. Red is too devilish, black too depressing, blue, pink, purple, fuschia, glitter all too teeny-bopperish. Is clear a color?

Eye makeup. Okay, that one looks too bland, that one has too many colors, how about this one, four colors, none too flashy, done.

By now, I'm starting to scare myself a bit with how easily I'm making decisions about make-up. Let's see, what else did she want? What the hell is a scrunchi? There better be a video game system in my stocking, that's all I have to say!

So, Christmas morning comes, and I'm more nervous than on the night I proposed, waiting for her to recoil in horror at my choices. It struck me then that this was one of those pre-marital tests I had always heard about, her way of judging what kind of husband and father I'd be. Crap! Maybe I shouldn't have gone for all of those naked choices! To my relief, she is happy with most everthing, even the multi-colored scrunchi's! Christmas is saved!

Well, she's still married to me, and though I still hesitate before heading down the make-up aisle to start my Christmas shopping, I do feel more confident and secure in my manliness.

Oh look, the new line of Luscious Lips colors is out. I've read about that...