Has Anyone Seen Travis?

I recently did something quite out of character. I took a fight that I had successfully won, and I essentially nullified my victory. Please explain? Okay.

At the beginning of the mock trial season, I had a little argument with the coach. You see, for the past couple of years, I've worn a pants suit. And occasionally, we have the misfortune of encountering fogey old judges who think that all women should be wearing skirts in the courtroom. Regardless of this opinion, the judges still scored me well, so I never paid much attention. And our coach never said much about it.

Then, at the beginning of this season, he decided to bring it up. He sent an email to the female counsel of the team, and told us that we should probably consider wearing skirts--meaning we should wear skirts. Both of us owned pants suits. I won the argument. She lost.

So, for the season thus far, we have had one female counsel member in a skirt suit and one in pants. I, luckily, was the one wearing pants. But then, for no good reason other than the fact that I like wearing suits, I decided to buy a new suit over winter break (the joy of Christmas money). Ideally, my plan was to get a three-piece suit that had both pants and a skirt, but that wasn't really happening. So I found a skirt suit that I liked.

And I bought it.

After fighting valiantly to win an argument so that I didn't have to wear a skirt, I went and bought one anyway. Very weird. But don't worry. I haven't lost my competitive edge. I'm still the same old stubborn Allison you all think you know so well. (I would say "know and love," as the saying goes, but it really doesn't seem applicable when half of the people I encounter will openly admit that they're scared of me.)

Anyway, I bought this suit, and I was all excited about it until I got home and remembered one very legitimate argument I had presented when trying to avoid wearing a skirt: I have tattoos on my feet and they're not exactly easy to cover up.

It was a lightbulb "Oh shit" moment when I remembered this fact. Because there I was, with my new suit, and I actually wanted to wear it; but I couldn't wear it for competition unless I found a way to make the tattoos disappear. And let's face it, laser removal is just out of my price range at this point. For that, I need to wait until I've finished law school and officially sold my soul to the corporate devil.

So I was talking to my roommate about my dilemma, and she did what I should have done before having a dilemma: Googled it. Go figure; the information superhighway was ready to deliver a solution, and I just didn't look, because it's so much more fun to have a problem than to solve it.

Turns out there's a product called Dermablend that advertises itself as being able to cover anything. Scars, tattoos, birthmarks, deformities--they can handle it. But I was skeptical. I've tried makeup before. And this shit was expensive. So I found a retailer--the very store where I had bought the suit the day before.

The following day, I returned to said fine retailer near me. I was aimlessly wandering the cosmetics section, trying to avoid sneezing due to the overwhelming aura of perfumes and colognes while simultaneously searching for the overpriced Dermablend. A nice young woman wearing far too much red lipstick soon approached me and asked if she could help. I told her I was looking for Dermablend and she led me to the correct counter.

"Now, I've never worked with this before; but the girl who normally works this counter tells me that the stuff in the little pots gets the best coverage." (A ringing endorsement for her qualifications.) She looked at my face. She looked puzzled. "What are you trying to cover?"

I lifted my pants slightly. "Tattoos."

She looked down. She looked puzzled again. "Are you going to be in a wedding?"

"No." Then, I had to figure out how to explain an absolutely ridiculous competition in which everyone dresses up like attorneys--possibly the most hated group of professionals in America--and acts out a fictitious trial in such a way that this woman, who was clearly easily confused, would understand. So, rather than going for clarity, I just went with noun-dropping. "I do mock trials; so I have to dress up like an attorney. I bought a skirt suit, and now I need to cover these."

She grabbed two pots of Dermablend and started applying, which led me to only one conclusion: the before-and-after shots on the Dermablend website were obviously photoshopped. Realizing she wasn't accomplishing anything, she announced, "Do you know who we need? We need Travis. He's our resident drag queen, and if he can cover a beard, he can cover anything. Has anyone seen Travis? Where's Travis?"

Within seconds, a fabulously stylish man approached. He had a model's saunter, unrivaled since Kevbo's strut in the courtroom, and was wearing a full face of foundation, black eyeliner, teal eyeshadow, mauve lipstick, and had pencilled in his eyebrows. And I do believe it was the first time that I thought a man had done his makeup well and tastefully.

I ran through the explanation of my dilemma with Travis; he found the shade of Dermablend that matched my foot; and then told me to follow him to his "station" (said with a lisp in full Dane Cook style).

At his station, I propped my foot on an extra stool and watched in amused confusion as he pulled out white eyeliner. Now, tell me, why would one need white eyeliner to cover tattoos on one's feet? And he explained. "Think of this as painting walls in your house. If there's something there, you need a basecoat to cover it before you can start with a new color. So we need to cover up the tattoo before we can use the foundation."

Now, this was a very patient drag queen. One of the tattoos is a tribal, and he traced it precisely with the white eyeliner. Then he traced the butterfly and carefully filled in the color on the wings. He was just having a great time coloring as every single employee in the cosmetics section stopped over to see what the hell was going on. Apparently it's not often that they apply makeup to someone's foot--and apparently it's even less often that they actually have something to do.

Then, he applied the foundation and the powder. And voila! The tattoo was gone. I was impressed. Truly.

Then, just as an experiment, Travis used my other foot to test the same method of application with a different product. But it didn't work. Dermablend does have some claim to fame, but beware of their website, because they're not nearly as fantastical as they advertise. (Liars.)

"Now, you have white eyeliner, don't you?" I said I did, just because I had no intention of paying twenty dollars for their white eyeliner. "Good. Because white eyeliner is white eyeliner. There's no reason to buy ours." I started laughing. I had guessed he was working on commission, but apparently not. "And just find any translucent powder. There's nothing special about ours."

With that, I paid for my overpriced Dermablend foundation and left the store to go buy cheap white eyeliner and powder. Thanks to Travis, my feet will be fantabulastically tattoo-free for competition.

Moral of the story: If you ever need help covering something with makeup, find a drag queen. (Conversely, if you ever need help creating something with makeup, I suppose you should find a drag king. Seems logical, no?)

Self-Censorial Skills

"Think before you speak." "If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all."

They're things we're told from a young age. We're told not to simply speak. Simply speaking isn't good enough.

And we know, based on experience in social situations, there is a "right" thing to say and a "right" time to say it.

For example, when your best friend comes back from the salon and says, "What do you think of my new haircut?" you have but a few options. No matter how much you may think you're an honesty freak, you probably give yourself a little latitude in this moment.

Your options are: (A) "It's. . . different. . . in that I-love-the-eighties-and-don't-know-that-this-style-went-out-with-the-eighties kind of way"; (B) "You look great!"; (C) "Is that a dead raccoon on your head?"; (D) "Did you look in the freakin' mirror? You're now officially that girl. Seriously"; or (E) "I don't know why you're asking me about your hair. The need to decorate yourself with dead cells and to then style those cells is totally a social construction. What matters is you, not your hair. Screw hair."

Now perhaps your style of pleasantries is different from mine, but I'm fairly certain you can guess the correct response to your friend's question. (Assuming, of course, that you want this friendship to continue and you're not looking to permanently damage your friend's self-image such that she'll become suicidal or go on a homicidal rampage and murder her hairdresser) the correct answer is (B).

You can't say what you mean. Even if your friend really does look as though she went out on a search for the nastiest, most rabid raccoon, then had it run over repeatedly by semi-trucks on a local highway, then deep fried the corpse, and then affixed the thing to her head, you can't say that. And if you have any sense of how to behave in social situations, you won't say what you mean.

But a problem occurs when we get really good at censoring ourselves. We never say what we mean. Maybe you're arguing with me, "But, Allison. I say what I mean all the time." Yeah, well, you're a fucking liar.

Perhaps you are one of the noble souls among us, and you sometimes say what you mean. Even so, you don't always say what you mean. If you do, then you've never gotten a job, you've never gone on a date, and you've never had friends or family. Because, let's face it, what we mean isn't pretty a lot of the time. We're human.

But the problem with the previous paragraph is that a lot of what we mean is pretty. We don't say the good things either. Because maybe it doesn't seem appropriate or we're scared of what will happen if we tell people what we're thinking. We censor ourselves with both compliments and insults.

Basically, we're afraid to talk--to express ourselves at all. And that's a problem, people. It's a really big fucking problem. So cut it out. Plain and simple. Next time you get ready to open your mouths and say what you mean, stop stopping yourselves. The world will benefit. And if it doesn't, at least I can say I tried, and then quickly shirk responsibility to blame the rest of you.

Update: The World Is Still Spinning

My roommate kindly pointed out to me this afternoon that I am ridiculous. That is, I can handle major life crises without batting an eye, but someone updates Internet Explorer or suggests that I switch to Mozilla Firefox, and I flip out.

That's right. Mess with my email, and I flip. Firefox wouldn't let me sign in, IE wouldn't open any folder besides the Inbox, and my head was about to explode. And don't even think of suggesting that I use Microsoft Outlook. We are not going there.

But. . . after changing a couple of settings on Firefox, my email is successfully functioning again. And now I'm having fun setting all the little live bookmarks and everything. And the world is still spinning. And I'll be fine. . . until technology gives me another reason to flip out.

Oh. . . the joys of being addicted to one's email. . . the joys. . .

I hate everything.

It's amazing how technology is necessary and yet utterly useless all at once. For instance, fucking Internet Explorer decided it needed to be updated. But then, it was useless. What was once fine and functional was suddenly useless and pointless. So I thought, I'll make the switch that everyone has been urging me to make for the past several years. I'll go to Mozilla Firefox. But that had all the same problems as the new fucking Internet Explorer.

I hate everything. I hate it all.

Allimom to the Rescue!

First, screw the Haiku idea. I'm just too long-winded to write anything of substance in fewer than twenty words. So to those of you who think my blog entries are too long, I suggest getting some capitalistic motivation and starting up a sort of Cliff's Notes for AEiF. I'm not sure how much money could be made from such a venture, but it would give you one more obligation, which is precisely what you need.

Anyway, here we go with yet another long-winded entry. If I had to give you the short version up front, it would be this: I have an insanely strong need to help others--especially when it comes to first aid. Feel free to read on or not read on. The choice is yours. Just know that there are medications that could help if you consistently find yourself unable to concentrate long enough to finish reading my blog entries.

Last week, I was at work in the office when I realized something: There has got to be something wrong with me. I know, I know. You all figured that much out a long time ago. Shut up.

Seriously though. There has got to be something terribly, horribly wrong with me.

Why? Good question. It would be nice if, just once, I would stop repeating my conclusion long enough to state a reason, huh? Too bad it won't happen.

Let us examine the title of this post: "Allimom to the Rescue!" Now, we already know I have a helper complex--insomuch as that means I won't accept help. What we have not examined thoroughly is the extent to which I am compelled to help others. And thanks to my job as a receptionist, I have a perfect example.

I was at work, just sitting at the desk doing nothing. Occasionally I would get a phone call or check my email, but for the most part I was just getting paid to do nothing. Then a student came in; he had a hold on his account and needed to know why. I explained the situation to him, then sent him on his way.

Approximately an hour or so later, the same student returned. He claimed that he had taken care of the holds put on his account by the bursar and needed to talk to someone about the hold placed by our office. So I talked to the appropriate person and then returned to the reception area to explain the situation yet again.

But something was different this time. This time, as I explained that the hold had been removed mere moments before he entered the office, something caught my eye: blood. His finger was cut. So I stopped mid-sentence and asked whether he needed a bandaid. (I love how certain brand names have become synonymous with certain nouns. Ah. . . capitalism. . .)

He said yes, so I told him to stay put and then toodled to the back of the office to retrieve a bandage that happened to be marketed as a bandaid. As I looked through the first-aid kit, I noticed two additional items that could potentially be of use: antibiotic ointment and alcohol swabs. I chose to take the latter, but not the former--a choice that made no sense.

As soon as I got back to the reception area, I placed the supplies on the front desk and opened the alcohol swab, then reached out for his hand. No. . . no. . . I could not be the normal person and just hand him a bandaid. Instead, I forced him to let me play nurse as I asked what he had done. Turns out he cut himself while cutting a sandwich.

From the looks of his finger, that must have been one hell of a sandwich. He had to have been applying a certain amount of force to create a cut that deep, and I just don't know of any sandwich that would warrant such force.

But that's besides the point. I quickly noticed that the antibiotic ointment would have been a good idea. So I told him to stay put yet again and went to the back of the office. (I'm amused that he didn't do what any normal person would have done: grab the bandaid and run.)

So I got the antibiotic ointment, returned to the desk, and finished playing nurse. All the while, I was lecturing him to be sure to keep neosporin (another great brand name) on the cut to prevent infection. And do you know what he did? He tried to shift the conversation back to the holds on his account and the question of whether he would be able to register for classes now. Silly boy. . . trying to talk about something I would have reason to know. . .

There's gotta be something wrong with me. (But if you're ever sick or injured, feel free to come find me or call me. I'd love to help. And if I can't, I'll at least play intermediary and find someone who can.)

From now on,

My blog entries will
Be written in the form of
Haikus with few words