Have you ever come across a time when it’s 6:30 a.m. and you’re in a hotel room in Silicon Valley, California, the brand new suit you bought for the big annual meeting hanging in the closet, and you reach into your makeup bag to complete the masterpiece that is your face by applying the oh-so-necessary mascara, only to find the key item missing?
Step back about 15 hours. You’re packing a small overnight bag so you don’t have to check it for the flight. You’re trying your best to fit everything into that pathetic Ziploc bag and you curse the facial product industry for making everything just slightly over 100mL. Because you have a bit of traveling to do, you leave putting your makeup on for last as to get the freshest face for the longest time possible. Dancing along to Lady Gaga on your iPod, you coat your eyes beautifully with a new Revlon Grow Luscious, grab your bag and book it out the door.
Fast-forward about 7 hours. You’re reached your hotel and check in for the night. Looking forward to a good sleep in a fairly decent bed, you thoroughly wash your face, making sure to cleanse, tone, and finally apply a solid night cream.
Eight hours later, you awake suddenly to the sharp RING RING RINGGG of the wake-up call. But you’re not fazed. You’re confident because you were asked to come to this important meeting, you have a fantastic new suit that fits perfectly, and you straightened your hair the night before and it still looks good.
Now return to 6:30 a.m: I am in the middle of nowhere, just about to leave to an important meeting, and I am missing my mascara. Had I noticed this significant dilemma eight hours earlier, I would have left the all-day grime of travel and sweat on my face the night before and slept with my face pointing at the ceiling all night to avoid smudging!
Of course when traveling for business, odds are that you are traveling with a male colleague as opposed to female. The problem with this being that unless said male is a businessman by day, drag queen by night, he likely does not own mascara, let alone bring it on business trips. I rip open the blinds. Look left, then right, then directly ahead. No CVS, no Walgreens, no hookers with purses of which I would pay $1000 for a partially used mascara stick.
Since this Revlon is usually the absolute last (and most important) item I put on in the morning, I now only have 10 minutes since noticing its absence until we leave for the meeting. Googlemap. There is nothing within miles. I contemplate my options: go to the lobby and ask the front desk if they have any? Break into someone’s room and hold them up with a mini bottle of shampoo and a Do Not Disturb sign folded into a sword?
In a last ditch effort, I attempt to fabricate mascara out of watered down eyeliner and try to paint my eyelashes with a liner brush. Failure. My previously relaxed body is bordering on nervous breakdown. Tearing open my computer bag, I see a black Sharpie and get down to business. After five minutes of frantic “drawing” of my eyelashes (apparently not the same as drawing on eyebrows), I realize it is useless. My eyelashes are now somewhat black, but just as frail and pitiful as if I had no makeup on at all.
Out the window I see my male boss heading to the rental car and looking for me. Utterly defeated and now stressed as ever, I head out while having one last depressing look in the mirror. Outside, I get in the passenger side of the car, avoiding eye contact. There is no comment, but his facial expression betrays that his mind is contemplating that I must have got severely wasted the night before, alone in my hotel room, which would explain the haggered look of my eyes, and the aura of complete stress emitting from my body.
The car starts and we head east towards the meeting. I flick on the radio: “Don’t hide yourself in regret, just love yourself and you’re set, baby, I was born this way. Thanks for the support Gaga, but I still look like shit.
NICKYKAYE & THE DELICATES OF BUSINESS 