I may have mentioned this before, but I’m a gadget person. I came by this honestly. You see, my dad is the king of gadgets. He’s collected all sorts of gadgets over the years and some proved to be quite useful. But, on the other hand, some were really not very useful at all. Like the fishin’ lure he bought that was suppose to swim all by itself. The advertisement said that if you put in some magic powder inside the lure, in a few minutes, the thing would take off like a cat with its tail on fire. (No, I’ve never set a cat’s tail on fire, and I don’t know how that girl who lived down the road from me when I was a kid, cat’s tail got charcoaled, but it wasn’t me. I like cats.) Anywho, the lure was supposed to take off zigzaggin’ in the water and then drive the fish into a feedin’ frenzy. They were supposed to attack it, and you would be pullin’ the fish in by the bucket full. Well, the magic powder turned out to be bakin’ powder and all that happened was bubbles would stream out the backend of the lure. When the fish saw this, they’d take off swimmin’ in the opposite direction, just like anybody with any sense would do in the same situation. Dad was sure disappointed in that lure.  

Now, I’m tellin’ y’all all this because like I said, I come from a gadget lovin’ family. I thought for a long time that I must have more gadgets than anyone must, with the exception of my dad, but then I looked in a drawer by Janet’s bathroom sink. I just thought I had gadgets. Janet, I discovered, has got me beat. Man, it sure must take a lot of junk to make a woman beautiful now-a-days. I don’t know how women back years ago did it. I called Janet in to tell me what all of those things were used for.

“Hey, Sugar Booger,” I said. “What is all this junk?”

“That’s not junk,” she replied. “Those are just tools of the trade.”

“What trade are you in? Torture?”  

Janet rolled her eyes, like she does about twenty thousand times a day, and started to leave.

“Don’t go,” I said. “I really want you to explain to me what you do with all of this junk; I mean, uh, stuff.”

“Like what,” she sighed.

“Like all of these tweezers. What on earth could you do with all these tweezers?”

“They are for plucking eyebrows,” she said.

“Why?”

“To shape them,” she replied.

“Into what?”

“You are impossible,” said Janet.

“Why? Just because I ask a reasonable question?”

“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand,” she said.

“I guess it’s like trainin’ bras,” I said.

“What?” asked Janet.

“You know; trainin’ bras. I never have figured them out.”

“What’s to figure out?”

“Well, I never figured out what girls were trainin’ them things to do.”

“Rusty,” said Janet. “Has anyone ever told you that not only are you are and idiot, but crude?”

“You mean, besides you?”

She turned and started to leave again. “Wait,” I said. “Pluck out one of my eyebrows.”

Janet laughed. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I want to see how it feels. It couldn’t be any worse than pullin’ out a nose hair. And by the way,” I said smugly. “I don’t have to have tweezers to do that. I can do it with my fingernails.”

“Oooo,” she said. “You are such a man.” Then she grabbed the tweezers.  “Okay,” she smiled. “Here goes.”  

She latched on to a big one and jerked. I didn’t yell, but a tear the size of my thumb flew out of my eye.

“How’d that feel?” Janet said as she held up the eyebrow hair for me to inspect?”

“What’s that on the end of that hair?” I asked as I wiped the tear away. “I bet its part of my brain.”

Janet looked at it closely. “No,” she said.  “It’s much too big to be your brain.”

“Har, Har,” I said. I looked back into the drawer.

“What’s this here thing?” I said, pullin’ out a scissors-lookin’ contraption.

“That is an eyelash curler,” she said.

“What’s it do?” I asked.

“Duh!” she said. “It curls eyelashes.”

“I mean, how does it work?”

“Like this,” she said, and snatched it away from my hands. She then tried to cram the thing in my eye.

“Hey!” I heyed. “What’re you doin’?”

“I’m going to curl your eyelashes,” she said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Will it make me look sexy?”

“No,” she said. “It’s an eyelash curler, not a magic wand.”

“Funny,” I said. “Well, be careful. And do the other eye. This one ain’t healed from you jerkin’ out that hunk of meat.”

She sighed and placed the device up next to my eye.

“Quit blinkin’,” she said.

“I can’t help it,” I replied. Finally she got it in place and started to squeeze. I could feel the thing tighten up and I jerked.

“YEEOOW!” I yelled.

“You idiot,” said Janet. “Look what you did.” She held up the curlers. There, in the clamp of the thing, was what looked like a caterpillar.  

“What’s that?” I said as I rubbed my eye.

“Your eyelashes,” she said.

“WHAT!” I yelled and looked in the mirror. “Great,” I said.  “Now my eyeball is bald.”

“Well,” she said. “At least it matches your head.”

“Real funny,” I said. “I can’t believe you did that.”

“Me? You’re the one who jerked your head.”

“Well, you’d have jerked too if somebody was tryin’ to dig out your eyeball.”

“You are such a baby,” said Janet.  

“Well, wah, wah, wah,” I said sarcastically.

 “Are there anymore things in that drawer you want me to explain?” she asked.

“Heck no!” I replied. “I gonna get out of here while I still have a few hairs left on my head.”

“Wait,” she said. “Don’t you want me to show you how this thermometer works?”

“I know how it works,” I said.  “You put it under your tongue.”

She smiled an evil little smile and said, “Not this one.”

Does anyone out there want a wife? I’ll let her go cheap. Real cheap.

 

All Rights reserved 10/27/2001