During sorority and fraternity “Formal Season,” I spend a lot of time planning my outfits. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the concept (because I know that I wasn’t before joining my organization), a Formal is a great deal like prom. Fancy dresses, suits and tuxes, a dinner, dancing, the whole nine yards.
First, of course, once getting a date to the function (whether it’s your own or one that you want to go on), one must obtain a dress, around which the rest of the outfit is planned. On functions like this I have the habit of planning every minute detail of my outfit. I brainstorm by sketching (very badly– I’m no artist) out my outfit and before the day of the event even arrives, it’s more than likely that I’ve already tried on the entire ensemble no less (but very likely more) than five times.
And then of course I wait until no one else is home so that I can prance around my house in it and feel like a princess.
Hey, I never claimed to be normal.
At any rate, when it came to planning my outfit, I was somewhat stuck. I had the shoes, I had the jewelry, I had the purse, but everyone knows that’s the easy part. I had settled on curling my hair, but that wasn’t the toughest decision to make either. The tough part was trying to figure out what make-up I would wear. My dress was a pale yellow, and with my fair skin, any creams or yellows, or colors in that general family were absolutely out. I gave up the idea of doing anything new, exciting or drastic with my make-up and figured I’d stick with the old tried and true routine I did every day.
The night before the formal, I joined 3 of my sisters (who were attending the same formal) in their search for Bump-Its. We wound up at CVS, where we did not find the Bump-Its, but we did find the make-up aisle and therefore, the employee who roams that area. She informed us that she was in beauty school and she could do our make-up for formal professionally and fo’ free.
2 of my sisters were thrilled. Free make-up? Sweet!
My other sister and I were… uh… less thrilled.
This chick wasn’t wearing any make-up. If she could apply make-up as fantastically as she claimed, then why wouldn’t she practice on herself? She was one of the more awkward people I’ve had the displeasure of meeting in my lifetime. Plus, she wanted to come to my house and bring her fiance with her. It all reeked of weird and I’m just a smidge too paranoid for it.
Upon getting in the car, we argued about the whole situation. My comments largely consisted of “Bad idea. BAD IDEA!” We finally settled on meeting her in a public place to let her do our make-up. She showed up, late, fiance in tow, still without any make-up on herself.
And took around 45 minutes each to do our make-up.
You know what she considered “full-face” make-up?
Foundation.
(That’s me… compensating for my lack of make-up with a weird face, apparently. This was our “finished” product.)
So we were late for the formal meeting, STILL had to do our own make-up (and now, with very little time, a half-ass job of it), get in our dresses, and grab a quick meal.
We made it, of course, but my ensemble was less than the thrilling outfit that I’d anticipated.
(And now I’m on the right… my make-up’s no work of art, but I happen to think it’s better than the chick with the “training”)
I avoid that CVS as much as possible now.
I wish I could say I haven’t let my friends live it down, but we swore we’d never bring it up again.
Oops.
