(A guest post from my mom)
One of my New Years resolutions is to do something for myself that I used to do. I used to wear fake eyelashes and I loved them. A few years ago, I read an interview of Carrie Underwood. She stated that her fake eyelashes were the most important makeup application she does. If she had to choose only one application…whether lipstick, blush, eyeshadow, she would pick fake eyelashes. After that article, I kept thinking how I loved wearing them, too.
I started wearing them at the age of 20, a few weeks before my wedding. The honeymoon was a cheap trip to northern Michigan. No great restaurants for 100 miles in any direction. But who thinks of food when you’re on your honeymoon? I would NOW but I didn’t then. But even if roughing it in northern Michigan, looking good is what I wanted.
On the first morning, my husband was in the bathroom. I slowly got out of bed and looked back at the sheets and saw a huge black spider.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… a spider…. Oh my God!!!”
The bathroom door flew open and there he stood buck naked. “A what?”
“A spider. Kill it… just kill it. Let’s get out of here.”
He got close to it, picked it up and turned to me. In the palm of his hand was my eyelash rolled into a ball.
That didn’t stop me, I kept wearing them everyday.
The first dinner party we had I wore really long lashes. I didn’t know that extreme oven heat would frizzle them. When I opened the oven door my lashes kinked up. Picture pubic hair as eyelashes. Everyone was seated at the table and I sat down smiling and said, “Everyone dig in.”
When I looked up everyone started to laugh.
“What happened to your eyelashes?” everyone said.
“I have no idea…. but I will be right back.” When I looked in the mirror, it looked like spiders on my eyelids. I pulled them off and went back to my guests.
I wore them for years after that and decided to buy them again last week. After watching a YouTube demo and learning a few pointers, I was ready to put them on. The first day was very uplifting. That night I carefully took them off and laid them on the bathroom counter. Over the past few days the eyelashes moved around on the counter, but I always found them.
Today was different… ONE WAS MISSING. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find it. There was no time to look any more. This morning my husband and I planned to visit estate sales in our area. One of our favorite things to do. He grabbed the legal pad where I list all the addresses, and we were out the door. By 7:00am we were in line waiting with at least 100 other people. The premise is… first in gets the first pick. Today was a good day… we were 2nd in line. As we waited, we talked and laughed with people.
We were in line 10 minutes when I felt someone touch my hair. I turned to look and heard a woman say to me, “Don’t move you have something in your hair.”
“It’s probably food.” I said. My hair is long and blond. I could feel her doing something back there.
“I don’t know what this is…. oh wait… I think I have it…. it’s aaaah… I’m not sure.”
In the palm of her hand, there it was… my eyelash.
“I’ve been looking for that… It’s my eyelash. This is the second time in my life a fake eyelash has ended up in a strange place.”
“What’s the first???” I heard from someone in line.
“Well… it was with my first husband.” I looked over at my number-3 husband, Lynn.
“Go on,” he said, “You’ve gone them wondering.”
After I told them the story I said, “I’m not giving up. Tomorrow they go on again.”