Monday, August 10, 2009

At least the car was stopped at the time

Two days ago I saw something that I never thought I'd see a woman do in public, let alone in traffic.

Sit back, make yourself comfortable and let me set the scene.

I was sitting in traffic.

It was a sunny day.

There was a lovely breeze.

The temperature was hovering around 77.

In other words, perfect convertible weather.

There was a woman in a car sitting next to me at the light.

Her car was a convertible.

An expensive high end one.

She also had an expensive high end look about her.

She was wearing good jewelry, she had a nice even tan and her clothes fit well and looked new.

Her hair was honey blonde, expensively cut with professional highlights as though she'd just come from the salon.

But if she had just come from the salon, she seemed to have forgotten to ask the stylist to go the extra mile and remove some other hair while she was there.

Because APPARENTLY while checking her lipstick in the mirror on her visor she noticed some whiskers.

And was intent upon removing them.

Right then.

Right there.

Now I may be old fashioned, but I think that female facial hair grooming should be done in private.

Not this woman.

She spent the whole time we were sitting at the light moving her tongue under her lip to thrust it out so she could tweeze her whole mustache area in her visor mirror.

She must have plucked twenty or thirty stray whiskers while we sat there waiting for the light to change.

Did I mention that she was doing this in the daytime, in a convertible?

A convertible.

As in open to the sky and all the cars surrounding hers.

Nothing between her and my eyeballs.

And nothing between her and the eyeballs of the grinning guy in the car on the other side of hers.

He locked eyes with me and gave me the universal do you see this eyebrow lift and hand gesture.

I gave him back the universal I see it but I don't believe it smile and head shake.

Then we both laughed.

I just sat there shaking my head and laughing until the light changed.

I thought about the lady off and on for the rest of the day and never did decide if a) she didn't care that people could see her b) she was oblivious to the audience c) she was just so freaked out by the whiskers that she couldn't wait ten seconds to pull into one of the multitude of parking lots available to her to tweeze the offending hair in a less public setting.

I don't know what she was thinking.

I do know that as she drove off I found myself thinking that I hoped that whoever she was driving to meet was well groomed.

Because if they weren't they might be in for a surprise.

This woman owns tweezers, and is not afraid to use them……

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Children have this belief, that if they can't see you, you can't see them. Some people don't grow out of that :)

Rougeneck said...

God forbid she got stopped at a train track or a drawbridge - she might give herself a bikini wax. As it is, I don't think a regular old stoplight would afford her enough time for the necessary below-the-belt grooming. But then again, she seems like a professional. Frankly - I am just impressed that she had tweezers with her IN THE CONVERTIBLE and she actually knew where they were. (PS Please tell me your wicked imagination made this shit up because if not...OMG - where they Hell do you hang out that you see the shi - sorry - see the sparkly frogfesty *stuff* (ouch that hurt) that you see?!?)

Karen from Mentor said...

Sorry CG honey, apparently more things like this happen in Ohio, or I just notice more of them.

ps I had tweezers in my purse, I knew where they were, but I had no urge to join in.
:0)

Anonymous said...

Now that's weird... I agree with the first comment, maybe she does live in the misconception that if she doesn't see you, you can't see her.
I have all sort if things in my bag like medicine, antibacterial gel, wet hankies, etc. for emergency, and I do have eyeliner and tweezers with me too. But never in a million years would I use them in public!

Karen from Mentor said...

I'm with you Estrella... :0)

OH! and Merrilee...
Re: Kids doing stuff in public.....

I walked into the bathroom at a restaurant. There was an embarrassed mom leaning on the hand dryer.
I grinned at her because I could HEAR what was making her look so sheepish.
Her child was belting out AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN HIGH ENOUGH along with the piped in music. I mean BELTING it out...with feeling.
She looked at me and said "He thinks if we can't see him, we can't hear him."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(so cute)

Anonymous said...

Maybe she's a compulsive tweezer? Or a 24/7 groomer? Too funny!

Karen from Mentor said...

Hi Shelly,
Thanks for stopping in.

I think that if she was a 24/7 grooming kind of gal there wouldn't have been so many hairs to tweeze from her lip.

I think it was more of an oh my gosh look what I just found out here in the bright sunlight while looking in my mirror moment.

I'm just glad she had the presence of mind to stop the car first.

But that might be a fun idea for a movie script....we could call it...Tina tweezer hands....hmmm...that JUST might work...

Karen :0)
come back anytime

j said...

At least in a covertible, the whiskers are carried off into the wind never to be seen again! Be glad she didn't notice her toenails needed clipping.

Karen from Mentor said...

Yuck Judy.

I don't think that I would have blogged that one....oh who am I kidding...yes I would have..

:0)

Kat Zhang said...

Hi Karen!

Very nice blog you have here. Since I traveled via your profile, I see that you write YA. I'm currently working on a book or two as well, so I'm quite interested in your writing. This little snippet of The Woman with the Tweezers (as I have personally dubbed it--hope you don't mind!) was hilarious. The things people do in their cars...

Takat
Writing away about my latest 3 week adventure through China at http://katacomb.blogspot.com

Karen from Mentor said...

Hey TaKat,
Thanks for dropping in. I enjoyed your posting about eating donkey while in China.
I would have passed on EATING the donkey, but I would have happily written a post about seeing you do it.
Stop back anytime.
Karen :0)

Anonymous said...

As always, you cracked me up. I really must look around more at stoplights ... or maybe I just live in a boring town.

Cat Connor said...

I stopped looking around at stop-lights years ago. I swear there are only so many times a person can cope with seeing someone pick their nose (with great gusto - what was he doing? Mining for gold??). Car = goldfish bowl... why do people think they're invisible?

I feel like jumping out, knocking on the offenders window and saying "I see you!"

Right now I'm off to take Breezy to her fist ever afternoon kindergarten session. She's so excited she can hardly cope with herself today!

T. M. Hunter said...

Hilarious! I never see anything interesting and amusing while sitting at stoplights. :-)

I just see things that piss me off, like idiots who cut through a parking lot because they can't wait another five minutes to get into the Starbucks, when construction has cut off one lane at the intersection.

Or the even better one (at the same intersection) when an idiot not only cuts through the parking lot, but also can't wait the extra five seconds it took not to drive over the sidewalk to get in for his coffee.

Karen from Mentor said...

Linda,do look around more at stop signs.
I just hope you don't have to see anything that Cat or Aston mentioned happening when THEY notice folks in traffic.

I only see funny things. I think I self edit the gross things. Although I DO see stupid things sometimes...then I tell you guys about them in Things I've seen thursdays. win/win

:0)

Karen from Mentor said...

Cat,
Hooray for Breezy! She's a big girl now!
Hugs!
Karen :0)!!!

Kris said...

That must have been a sight!

I usually wear dark sunglasses when I'm outside, which make it difficult for people to see where I'm looking. Not that I'm in the habit of checking people out, but if I have glasses perched on my nose I have the feeling that they can't see my eyes. Which makes for awkward moments when I don't have my contacts in and I find myself working under the false assumption that people won't notice I'm staring at them. Like when I'm marvelling at the girl off to the side who has about 612 tatoos. Or the massive guy who has a belly-button length beard to compensate for his lack of hair on top. It can make for some embarrassing moments.

But I think I'd know better than to assume I had no audience in a convertible!

Karen from Mentor said...

Hey Kris,
I know! I still haven't figured it out.
Cars have windows... we can see in....convertibles are open, we can see you. How hard is that?

I was proud of myself for keeping my naked (as in no sunglasses) eyes from staring the other day when I was talking to a kid with a giant upholstery needle through his bottom lip.

I had an extreme urge to photograph him because his look was just so interesting overall....but I didn't ask. Now I'm wondering if he would have let me....it could have gone either way. Depending on what his look was ABOUT for him.

But I'm sad now that I didn't ask because he would have translated GREAT to film.
And the photos would have been beautiful.

Thanks for stopping in. It's always nice to see you.
Karen :0)

mdvelazquez said...

Quite funny. I'm always amused by what people will do when they think no one is watching. I saw a lady trim her nose hair once on the subway. It was off hours, but there are still plenty of people on the subway. :-)

Karen from Mentor said...

Did she at least have one of those little personal trimmer things?

Or was she walking around wielding some big giant hedge clippers?
(cause that would actually be worth watching)

:0)

Judy Haley - CoffeeJitters.Net said...

This totally reminded me of that scene in "my big fat greek wedding" where the mother of the bride is giving the bride advice while at the same time someone else is plucking the mother of the brides whiskers.

Karen from Mentor said...

Oh my gosh I remember that scene.
I was just sad that they then didn't put a little windex on it.
too funny.
Hi Ms. Jitters!