I was ordering a burger at McDonald’s but I couldn’t take my eyes off this chick’s eyebrows.
They were the kind of eyebrows that look like they must be an accident; but they can’t be an accident because they match.
Her real eyebrows are gone. The place above her eyes where the eyebrows should be is just a bald ridge of bone, like maybe they got burned off in some terrible deep-fat fryer accident on the night shift; her forehead is the shiny smooth dome of Captain Picard from her hairline to her eyeballs.
In place of her eyebrows there are, instead, two great huge brown arcs, each one half the famous McDonalds logo in of itself, one golden arch over each eye. There is nothing about either one that is remotely like an eyebrow; each is nearly a half-inch thick, square at either end. I’m sure, as I’m staring at them, that they’re the result of a magic-marker. A big fat wide permanent felt-tip laundry pen has left behind these two ridiculous St. Louis Arches, two amazing tourist attractions, the eighth and ninth wonders of the world. People probably come from miles around to this McDonald’s to see this woman’s eyebrows.
She’s looking at me with this permanent look of utter astonishment, a snapshot of surprise frozen on the front of her head like a clown in rigor, and I realize that she’s been asking me if I want to Super Size my meal and I’ve just been staring at her Super Size eyebrows and have completely forgotten why I’m even there. It blows my mind to consider that she’s done this to herself on purpose … that this wasn’t something somebody did to her when she was passed out on the couch, while they were waiting for her bra to freeze. This is by design… and I’m assuming it means that she’s happier with these two amazing tags on her head than she was with the face that God gave her.
Doesn’t she have any friends? Doesn’t someone on the planet care enough about her to tell her about the two things living on her forehead? They’d tell her if she had a hunk of pesto stuck in her teeth. Letting her go out in public like this is like letting her go out with a ‘wide load’ sign taped on her ass. It’s like tattooing ‘oops’ on your forehead.
But people do weird crap to themselves all the time. Seventy-year-old ladies who dress in purple sweatsuits with purple hats and purple sunglasses with rhinestones and glitter, like big velour TeleTubbies. Their kids let them go out to breakfast at Denny’s like this. I was at Disneyland when I saw a guy with a feathered mullet, black fishnet tank top, gold-capped teeth and silver parachute pants. This was not when parachute pants were cool (yes, they were cool once, I tell myself). He apparently didn’t have any friends either. And it’s clear that nobody with a comb-over has any friends. But all these people, the purple sweat-suit comb-over mullet crazy eyebrow people really believe that they look good, and that’s sad.
Baggy-pant skater boys with their boxers hanging out think they look good. Rappers with “Ridiculous” carved into the gold Buick grilles they keep on their teeth think they look good. Guys with 36-inch waxed handlebar mustaches think they look good. We all think we look good, and the only thing that keeps us from knowing what we really look like is the fact that nobody really cares enough about us to tell us the truth.
So as I’m standing here staring at this woman I’m wondering whether or not I should say something to her … something like “don’t move, there are two scary-ass centipedes surrounding your eyeballs”. Something like “how nice of you to let your kids do your makeup for you”. Something like “All this time I thought Ronald was a guy”.
I’d be doing her a big favor with a reality check like that. Calling it what it is. Doing the thing her friends would do for her, if she had any.
But I don’t. And I’ll tell you why.
Because I don’t want anyone doing it to me. I like the delusion I’ve created for myself with regard to my hair and my ass. I don’t really care at this point to hear that it’s George Costanza I look like and not Bruce Willis. It’s not important. What’s important is that I believe the 3700 calories wrapped in my Super Sized Big Mac and fries don’t show on me.
I’m sure she thinks her eyebrows are beautiful. It’s not important that I think they’re not.
So yes, I say to her, I’ll super-size that. Give me some extra fries and a slab of cheese, and deep-fry me a stick of butter while you’re at it. And by the way, your eyebrows look lovely and normal and not at all freakish and scary.
And don’t let me catch you staring at my humongous ass as I walk away.
The power of positive thinking.
I never thought I’d hear myself say that.
That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.