Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Eyebrows

A couple of years ago, my half indian friend introduced me to the brilliance and wonderment that is the art of eyebrow threading. While it is, essentially, the act of hair being forcefully yanked out of some of the most sensitive skin on your body, threading makes your brows look fantastic. That is, once you get past the first day when your eyebrows look like a gay man's.

I'm writing this blog directly from this salon in a place I like to call India, which consists of a shopping center containing Indian clothing stores, Bombay Chinese cuisine, and a vegetarian restaurant, and it wouldn't be complete without the ever-popular TJ Maxx and Party City, garrisoned on either end of the strip mall.

India has recently been renovated, and it looks simply stunning. Gone are the days of yellowing floors and fraying wicker furniture. Oh no siree, they've upgraded to a new formica floor in some sort of mottled pattern that is supposed to look like marble. Elegant white stone pedestals draped in ornate plastic roses give the room classic Athenian feel. And the smell? Lysol Lovely.

The best part about the waiting room in India is the 50 inch, 9,000 pound television that is constantly playing the latest in Middle Eastern soap operas. Right now, there are two heavily made-up women abusing a crying child and undoubtedly inducing shaken baby syndrome, Bollywood style, lighting up the screen. This is only mildly disturbing, given the previous scene of several men dressed in traditional women's garb dancing through a marketplace and occasionally hitting a meek beauty, laughing more uproariously with each smack.

My eyes are wandering, and I begin to read the Salon and Accessories Menu. Keep in mind that there are no accessories of any kind listed on said menu, unless you count accessories to the crime of misspelling. Threading. It appears one can get a full face threading for only $10.00. For an added fee, one can have one's neck dehaired also. This is only offered for women. Women with beards, apparently. There is only one service for men, and that is an eyebrow thread. A full or half stomach wax is also available. If you're going to wax your stomach, I really don't know why you wouldn't go through with the whole thing. Hair and make-up is also available, including "bridle" make-up for a cool $125. I'm perplexed. I was unaware that horse mouthpieces and accompanying harnesses really required all that much make-up, but I guess I was wrong. Horses can be so sensitive about their looks. The bottom of the menu says "Your Satisfaction is Our Success." I understand the message they're trying to send, but it still doesn't make that proclamation roll of the tongue any easier. Not to mention that I don't believe they care if I'm satisfied or not, seeing as the heavyset woman largely resembling Roz from Monsters, Inc. who mans the register hates me. She hates me more if I compliment her, I don't know why.

The other threaders are eyeing me anxiously. They know that I'm waiting for my usual torturer who never messes up my eyebrows and always mentions any and all pimples for no apparent reason other than to call more attention to them than is already being done by the heaps of concealer I have subtly covering the geysers. They can stare all they want, I am waiting for my threader. Call me sentimental, but I just couldn't stand to peek out with one eye at anyone else besides her in her red chunky Tommy Hilfiger sweater that I may have owned in 6th grade. I was really into wearing the most exclusive designers back then. Today, she's wearing a baby blue lycra tee proudly emblazoned with "Banana Republic". She's such a fashion trailblazer. Lifetime should make a movie about her next, it would be way better than the Coco Chanel Story, even though I watched that twice.

She just finished doing my eyebrows, and they look just as I want them to: partly homosexual and raw around the edges. Look out, world, here I come.