Beauty Dish

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Ways to Avoid Customers
I drove around town this morning, dropping off Avon brochures in every fast food restaurant in town. It's part of my ongoing efforts to make sales without having to meet anyone.
Other good ideas I've had:
Go to the mall and leave a brochure in all of the womens' fitting rooms. I had to try on twenty-eight items (I counted!) to do this.
Leave a brochure in every dentist office waiting room.
Slip a brochure into opened windows of parked cars in front of the fancy yuppy gym.

One of my customers is a real talker. She doesn't like silent spaces. She spent her lunch break with me outside her work building. She telemarkets for a well known golf company. My town is Word HQ for many famous golf companies like Taylor Made and Calloway. They reside in a winding complex off of El Camino Real, "The King's Road." This road was once dotted with Catholic Missions, each one day's travel from the next, from Mexico to San Francisco. It's now home to a million strip malls, donut shops, residential communities, and historic markers.
I met her in front of the man made lake. You can see the cement beneath clear water, and the lowest point is home to a few hundred stray golf balls. A field of mustard greens lays beyond the lake, dotted with more balls and a flags showing distance. She called me on my cell phone this morning, asking if we could meet on the treated lumber bench.
She ordered the Cellu-Sculpt, the Dead Sea Minerals foot scrub, a lipstick, a blush, two lip balms, a bubble bath, and the Hollywood Style Barbie Doll - the Latina model. We'd only been sitting five minutes, and if I were a bit smarter, I could have been off the bench and into my car in sixty seconds more, but I made a big mistake.
"Do you collect Barbies?" It seemed like such an innocent question.
She spent the rest of her lunch hour discussing her extensive Barbie collection, the nuances and nature of Barbie, and why Barbie is still a good role model for children.
You truly learn something new every day.

3:19:20 PM doorbell []

ready for most emergencies
I'm still recovering from yesterday's walkabout.
I left home on foot at ten in the morning, wearing the khaki utilikilt my sisters gave me for my birthday last December. The Utilikilt company slogan is "We Sell Freedom" and damn if they aren't right. I never wore the kilt prior to yesterday. I never knew what to do with it. It has pockets on the outside and secret pockets on the inside and hooks and loops and chains and flaps. The sort of kilt you would expect James Bond to wear, if he went undercover as a Scottish jewel thief. I still don't know why my sisters thought this was a great gift. It's weird.
I stuffed the kilt with samples and a couple of pens and my order book and calculator. I figured this would free up my backpack for more brochures. I stuffed it so much that it flared out at my hips like a gigantic Celtic tutu. I completed the ensemble with a black t-shirt with the word "Bella" across the breasts in rhinestones and my trusty Avon flip-flops.
I headed toward the junior high school. This is an area I haven't canvassed yet. The homes sit close together and the foliage is well-cultured. Mature lemon and grapefruit trees line the street and the smell of rotting citrus pervades the neighborhood. I took a deep breath and knocked on the corner home, a two-story Tudor with a twisted Eucalyptus arching across the driveway. A small dog yipped behind the curtains.
"Come in! Come in!" A woman in blue jean capris and a aqua preppy shirt opened the door and shooed me inside. She held a yorkie under one arm and he slobbered and panted and eyed me with suspicion.
"You've got to see this. It's unbelievable! I'm sick over this! What the hell is wrong with people?" Her feet moved with speed and purpose toward an Apple Powerbook open on the kitchen bar.
"Just look! Look!"
I looked. The computer's web browser was open to a site showing still photographs of a man without his head. A beheading. My stomach lurched. I turned my head away and stared at a hanging basket filled with garlic and onions.
"I read about that this morning," I whispered. "I am so sorry all of this is happening."
The woman took a good look at me for the first time. Her eyes rested on the Avon brochure in my left hand.
"Wait. Aren't you the new cleaning girl?"
"No," I told her, "I'm the Avon Lady."
The woman rolled her eyes and smirked.
"Oh Avon. I don't want any of that. But, hon, what the HELL are you wearing?!"

9:43:35 AM doorbell []