Apparently I Had A Brain Tumor For Breakfast That Day

I needed powder. I wanted something different. I was lazy, and skipped Sephora. I skipped the researching, and went straight to my department store counter. They're professionals too, right?

That's when I was accosted by a 300 pound drag queen.

“What you look for?” she said, in an accent I couldn't quite place.

“Uh, just looking for a powder that won't settle into fine lines,” I said.

“What wrinkle? You have no line....” I think that was a compliment, but she made it sound like an accusation.

“Okay, well, can you give me a recommendation?”

“Here, come to counter and I show. What foundation you use?”

“I don't wear any foundation. I'm using tinted moisturizer and a light setting powder. I'm just looking for face powder.” I was trying to make it clear that I'm pretty low maintenance.

“Okay, we try a little bit of this powder in your eye corner,” and she makes a motion to the corner of her eye, “I remove just a little bit here.” Her accent still floating around the globe, yet not touching down anywhere specific.

When a make-up counter lady is that anxious to use your head as her/his(its?) new canvas, you should be very cautious. 

Bam! She took rag full of makeup remover and toweled off the entire left side of my face.

“What treatment you use?” But she didn't miss a beat, and answered her own question with “I use wrinkle cream here for you.” She slathered something wet on my face, and lobbed a too-dark foundation at me.

Then I noticed her tools, namely the makeup brush which appeared not to have been cleaned in a while. I tried to get away but....too late. RuPaul was smearing my face with foundation and using that brush. Oh well. I had medical coverage for whatever flesh eating disease I might contract.

Then we finally get to the powder. It's white. Not light, not opaque, but the color of cocaine.

She decided to take a light hand with this, barely setting all the other slop.

She handed me the mirror. There were streaks of foundation crisscrossing the side of my face.

“Look.....do you have a powder that is NOT WHITE??? Maybe something in a nice flesh tone, and not the color of nose candy??”

She responds with, “But you use this white powder over color foundation. Then is not so white.”

“Yes. I get that, but I just told you I don't wear foundation. I don't need all that. Look at me, I didn't have much makeup on in the first place, so that should be a pretty big hint right there.”

A light went on in her brain. “Oh, nooo. We don't have thaaaat.”

What she actually meant was, “We don't have that in the product line I'm trying to sell you, but I'm also not going to offer any recommendation on another product line, so suck it.”

Normally I'd hand out a verbal beating at this point, but my daughter's been reminding me that my menopause temper has been getting the better of me, and I should try to relax a bit more. In retrospect, all my daughter did was snicker through all of this, so I should have just gone with my instincts.

I grabbed a tissue and began looking for a mirror somewhere far away from this sales clerk. As I'm wiping goo from my face, I was tempted to ask the MAC Weirdo behind the counter about their powder. Although they tend to hire freaks as beauty consultants, in my experience, they really know their stuff. I used MAC about ten years ago, it might still be good.

Apparently, in anticipation of a cosmetics question, the MAC consultant came over, smiled widely through purple glossed lips, and revealed a pair of eye teeth that had been sharpened into fangs.

I kept walking. I had my share of freak show for the day.