More like Mary CRACK

Last Thursday, I engaged in one of the most treacherous confrontations of all time. No, it was not American Gladiators. No, it was not Man vs. Wild.

It was Me versus the Mary Kay lady.

For all the men who just scoffed: No. No you don’t. You don’t know what it’s like. Have you ever been told that your face started losing collagen at age 15 (15!) in a voice that shook with doom? Have you ever been informed that the skin beneath your eyes is 1/4(1/4!!) as thick as the rest of your facial epidermis, and that it is crucial to maintain its fragile strength? Have you ever heard in powerful resonant tones that all your wildest dreams would come true if you only invested in the Satin Hands Trio Formula?

No. You haven’t.

And don’t don’t don’t! –No, stop it—I’m talking— Don’t try to tell me that those immaculate Mary Kay sales ladies prey upon the insecurities of women who have been suckered into the Beauty Myth that is so ruthlessly prevalent in this country. Because homie, I was going to write a frickin book about those insecurities. I have stood on many a soap box when it comes to fighting beauty stereotypes in the media and overcoming self doubt.

But even the strongest will bends when at the mercy of the silken tongued Mary Kay lady.

I had no idea either. I went in like a wide-eyed lamb to the slaughter, innocent: free. Frolicsome. Last year, I had been given a basket of Mary Kay products as a gift, and had gotten hooked on one product in particular. I had no idea then that the gift-giver was the equivalent of Smack Pimp Drug Pusher Man. Yet here I was, entering a Mary Kay party clutching my empty bottle of Step Two Timewise: Replenishment like a used syringe: my connection with better days.

I should have run at my first feeling of alarm. What am I doing here? This is a Mary Kay party. We’re talking about anti-aging products. I’m 24. I don’t need anti-aging yet. I am not my Mother. Mary Kay is for mothers. Holy crap I am my mother. I am at a Mary Kay party, and I am my mother.

But they she gave us the line about losing collagen in our faces starting at age FIFTEEN, and I forgot to run. Far from it: I bellied up to the bar, man, and ordered hook, line, and sinker. I fell for the promotions with the same susceptible gusto that I have always mocked my parents for demonstrating in the face of similar sales pitches: I got the Mineral Powder, the NightTime Renewal Magic Moisturizer, the Step Two: Timewise Replenishment, the Tinted Moisturizer, the Satin Hands Trio.

No, I will not tell you how much I spent. Because more than one of you reading this would know how many African children my Mary Kay splurge would feed, and we would all feel appalled.

What happened? Remembering it now feels fuzzy. It was a whirlwind, a blur—-a scented peach cyclone of products and order forms. I left glazy eyed, with a smile as dazed and vacant as Katie Holmes’. “Don’t worry,” I would have said in a high-pitched monotone, to any present skeptics, “Soon my face will glow like the Virgin Mary. You will see. It will alllll be worth it.”

That is, until the Mary Kay high left me, dropped me like a Mean Pimp, left me crouching next to an alley way dumpster clutching my pink plastic bag of Magic Formulas.

But hey: at least I was clutching it with silky Satin Hands.