CALL ME!!!!!

There’s a friend of mine who has just started a Mary Kay business. And she has asked me about putting together a party. She’s asked me more than once. I’ve done the verbal tap dance around the subject. I believe I may have faked a heart attack once to avoid discussing the whole thing.

Because, see, the last time I tried to throw a ‘try-n-buy’ party it was a Pampered Chef a few years ago. I invited eight other women, all of whom said they’d just love to, oh shriek, oh giggle, what fun! And when I called to remind them a couple days before, only one said, “Oh, drat, I won’t be making it.” The rest were still shrieking and giggling and saying they couldn’t wait.

Guess how many of them actually showed up.

That’s right! Zero! None! It was me, and Lyla the Pampered Chef Rep (and an awful lot of snack foods), and that was it.

I still have nightmares. Lyla, sitting there, looking at me with big, mournful eyes, like, “Uuuuuh…so. Here we are.” And asking me, twice, if I had remembered to remind people.

So I’m a little nervy about having parties. I am, apparently, still that dork people like to ditch. I envision those other eight women sitting around the coffee shop having a good laugh about me and my pathetic attempts to have a Pampered Chef party.

Of course, I was able to at least make it worth her drive, because Me + Groovy Cooking Utensils = SALE!

But I don’t do makeup, really. I have odd, randomly-sensitive skin – sometimes, I can wear a rot gut product (Try new Blurb! Now, with REAL LYE!!) without any harm done, other times I’ll put something specifically designed to be ‘safe for sensitive skin’ and end up with blisters all over my face.

So. I try new skincare very cautiously. One new product at a time, and give it a few solid hours to start itching / burning / peeling the skin off my face in large sheets.

I figured I could try to put together a party anyway. I could buy things for other people. I could…I dunno…maybe Mary Kay makes pajamas, nice safe pajamas, I could buy a pair of pajamas or something. Or if I were in a herd of other women, maybe my friend wouldn’t notice that I didn’t buy anything OR allow her to put anything on my face. I’d go hide in the kitchen and pretend it took four hours to make coffee, making the occasional wise-crack through the open door so they’d remember that I was there.

I’m resourceful. I’d think of something.

My friend had said I should ask other moms at the school. OK, I said bravely, to myself. I can do this. Surely they won’t all flake on me. I’ll just invite, like, six hundred of them. Then I might get one or two who actually show up.

Like the great Indian tracker that I am (ahem), I stalked my prey. I had The Perfect Person© in my crosshairs: Her son is in the same class as mine, so there’s a bond there, right? And she’s one of those ‘put together’ types, who wears makeup and wears it well, and I thought gee. Maybe she’d be the type who would like a girly-girl party thing with makeup. Gee! Maybe she’d even know a few other gals who would like to attend! Because she’s pretty! And does the makeup ‘thing’! And she’s very social and stuff!! Maybe she’s got other pretty, made-up friends who could bring a couple friends…

So I snuck up behind her and, before she could get away, fired off my cosmetic-party question. WOULD she be interested in coming to my place for a Mary Kay party, my friend, yadda yadda blah blah long story here.

And then I waited for her to wince and stutter and then tell me that she’d love to, naturally, only GEE, she JUST REMEMBERED…she was moving to Podunk next week.

But instead, she says, enthusiastically, “Oh, the parties are SO MUCH FUN! You will love-love-love it!”

Anybody else already going, “uh-oh”? Cause I wasn’t, I was just kind of jazzed that she didn’t scream in horror and flee.

So I’m standing there feeling great because hot dog – maybe I was right! Maybe she can help me actually put together an actual party with actual warm, living human bodies and it could be fun and stuff!

She starts quizzing me. Where is my friend based? Is she local? Is she, you know, here in town? How long has she been at it, blah blah blah…chat chat chat…and dummy over here is just going right along with it all…

…and then…
…she said…
…BRIGHTLY!...

“You know, it’s sometimes better if you have a local representative...”

My stomach took a sudden jump towards my toenails. I saw it coming. I realized, in a flash of !TOO LATE! insight, what was about to come out of her mouth.

“Here’s my card! And a sample! Wait! I have more in my car!! Sensitive skin! No problem! CALL ME! Guaranteed not to burn, char or mangle your face in any way! You’ll love this! And that! Here! Let me give you this one CALL ME! And that, it’s PINK! CALL ME!! And this! And that! You WILL see the difference in three days I GUARANTEE IT and here’s one with a ribbon on it CALL ME!! ANYTIME!!!!!!!”

I feel as though I stumbled into a cult meeting and made the mistake of leaving my driver’s license behind as I fled…they know where I live.

I’m being stalked. Stalked, I tell you! The hunter has become the hunted. I think I am the only woman in all the town who is not selling something out of my car. The only woman in the whole county who doesn’t have a Suburban’s worth of cheerfully-beribboned white bags in my trunk. Guaranteed to cure your ugly in three days – CALL ME!!!!

I had no idea how many bizarre things women sell all over this town, door to door, word of mouth, tell your friends, have a party, CALL ME!!! And I have no idea how I was managing to stay under their radar all these years…but I’ve blown that.

Big time.

Madame Mary Kay accepted my ‘look, I’m sorry, but IF I were to start buying Mary Kay stuff, I really would buy it from my friend, bonds of loyalty and all that’ with a fair amount of grace. And the reminder that, in an emergency, she was right there for me.

(Excuse me, ‘emergency’? Um, OK, I’m purdy ig’ner’int on such matters [see ‘don’t really do the makeup thing’ comment above], but I’m sitting here trying to think how the words ‘makeup’ and ‘emergency’ can go together. Unless, in my case, it is ‘Quick! Get me soap and water! This stuff is blistering my eyelids!’, in which case, more makeup is not what I need.) (I’m serious – I once had eye shadow blister my eyelids. Wee little white blisters, all over them. And YES!!! It hurt!!!!!!)

But guess what.

There are four other mothers at this center who are likewise consultants for assorted cosmetics and whatnot. Avon, Amway, some ‘shadow plus’ thing that I can’t really tell you anything about. I think it had to do with eye shadow, a monthly club or something. I didn’t really catch the particulars, because I was backpedaling toward the door during the spiel, joggling Captain Adventure up and down in the hopes that he’d puke and give me an easy way out of the conversation.

Which he refused to do. He just laughed charmingly, waved at her, and sang out, “Bye bye! Bye bye!”, thus giving Shadow Mom the ability to chase me into the street cooing, “Oh, isn’t he the cutest thing ever? Itsy-oopsie-cutsie-wootsie…Here’s my card! And a sample! Take two! CALL ME!!!”

Dratted kids, they’ll never puke when you really need them to.

Plus Also, there is an Army of Self Employed Consultants over at Eldest’s school, all of whom have now heard through the grapevine that I am a potential victim client.

“Oh, I heard that {Eldest, Danger Mouse, Boo Bug, Captain Adventure}’s mom is going to have a Mary Kay party”, they say, casually in passing (or with malice aforethought, thinking to get the Army off their own behinds by handing them mine).

And they’re OFF. Hounds after the fox! Ta-ROO! Ta-ROO!

They know my kids, my van, and DAMN IT, I think one of them followed me home and took note of my address to share around the Army water cooler, because one of them just sort of turned up on my porch one afternoon.

“Hi, I’m Such-n-So’s mom, he goes to School with your Eldest? Ha ha, yes, small talk about playdates and OH BY THE WAY, here’s a sample of my AMAZING LAUNDRY DETERGENT! He3, He4, front load, top load, SIDE LOAD whatever you’ve got I can handle it CALL ME!!!!!”

Laundry soap, people. She sells laundry soap. In a variety of scents, hypo-allergenic, guaranteed to make me sneeze violently! CALL HER!!!!

I may suffocate beneath the weight of the free sample bags. All brightly wrapped with festive bows. Manicures! Parties! We sell the purest manure in Hicksville, GUARANTEED! Invite your friends! Invite your enemies! From Creative Memories to Amway, everybody who sells anything out of their garage is all over me like a flock of ducks swarming a single June bug.

Resistance is futile…you will be assimilated…

I am done for, friends. The Army of the Self-Employed have found me out, and are mobilizing to destroy me.

However, if you’d like to purchase any of the product lines mentioned above, or shoot, any other product line sold by ‘independent consultants’, hey. I’ll hook you up. I know people who know people.

CALL ME!!!!!