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Friday, March 11, 2011

Do You Know Where Your Lip Gloss Has Been?

Do You Know Where Your Lip Gloss Has Been?

My mother taught me, with the exception of my sister or best friend, not to use other people’s cosmetics. But who hasn’t stood at the mirror in the lady’s room on a Saturday night and swiped foreign lipstick across their mouth without thinking twice about it? But as a rule I’ve followed her advice pretty closely- until yesterday. Where do you draw the line of association? What if the lip gloss belongs to a co-worker? Harmless, right?

Wrong! In my defense, I have to say right now, that my spidey senses told me not to do it. It was just one of those things that you know intuitively. But I’m also the type of person who takes pains not to offend, and often end up being tactful to the point of abandoning good judgment. Ok, yes, a follower.

From this point on, the names have been changed to protect the innocent- and the bizarre.

Janine is a wonderfully friendly and exuberant woman I’ve worked with for about a month. She has an attractive face, long flowing dark hair, and an hour glass figure leaning a little toward Ruben-esk. She is exuberent, but seemingly innocent at the same time.

On my way to the break room one day, I joined another co-worker, Debra in a tête-à-tête at her desk. Janine was applying lip gloss from a container the size of a one pound Noxema jar. She offered some to each of us. We both declined. Then I got a whiff of a yummy strawberry scent. Hmmm, my lips WERE rather dry.

“Ok, I’ll try some.”


Janine happily handed the jar to me and I scooped out a waxy substance and slathered it on my lips. I immediately felt a warm, tingling sensation.

Wow, this is different, I thought.

As the conversation continued, I found myself distracted by this unusual, but rather nice sensation.

“Janine, that’s an awfully big jar of lip gloss,” I casually mentioned while smacking my lips together. “Where did you buy it- Costco?”

Debra, reached out her hand, “Here, let me see that.”

She studied the back of the jar for about 10 seconds before shrieking with glee, “This says it’s for nipples!”

“Yes, but it doesn’t work.”

This was said so casually, so deadpan, and with such perfect timing that Janine could easily have played the straight-man part of Gracie Burns.

Now I knew the meaning of the unusual tingling of my lips. Apparently this product had multiple uses. I didn’t know whether to swipe my sleeve across my mouth to remove it as soon as possible, or rub it off my lips with my fingers, and then stick my hand into my bra.

Not wanting to hurt Janine’s feelings, dissuaded me against the former; being in a public place prevented me from doing the latter.

“That information might have been helpful BEFORE I put this stuff on my lips, Janine!”

Debra valiantly tried to keep a straight face, but the tell-tale tummy shaking gave her away.

I noticed Janine’s purse sticking half-way out from under her desk. I had no idea what else might be lurking in that suitcase-sized handbag of hers, and had no intention of finding out. I kept my door closed the rest of the day; partly to muffle the snickering of my co-workers; but mostly I wanted to avoid anymore of Janine's generosity. Next thing you know, she'll ask me if my neck is tense and pull out one of those mini "neck massagers" Walgreens sells in plain sight!

Moral of the story: Listen to your mother- she was right!

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