My Mumbling Thoughts

Write about something you observed or experienced as a child...

As little girls we would always play dress up and pretend to be other people. Life was always far more exciting in the small town of Minot, North Dakota when you were a princess or famous singer. And although we had the clothes and would style our hair, the most fun for my sister and I would be slathering on all of our mother's make-up on our faces and believing that it made us look like grown-ups. Nothing showed just how old we were were than piling on loads of eyeshadow and darkening our cheeks with blush and/or lipstick.

My sister, Mel, who is two years younger than me but a foot taller, would close the lid of the toilet and sit with her legs crossed as I grabbed the small bathroom stool and climbed on top. We had no concept of the "rules" that one should follow when applying make-up, only our instincts and what we thought to be "glamorous."

I would push Mel's bangs back that covered her forehead with my left hand and begin with what has always been the most fun for me: the eyelids. I'd pull out the only eyeshadow that contained any amount of glitter (my mom wasn't the girliest of women) and would generously apply it from the very edge of Mel's eyelashes all the way up to her eyebrows.

"Yes, that's perfect," I would say to her as I stood back and looked over my work of art as if she were a living easel, and then again I would push her bangs back and attack the other eye.

Time would go by, one hour would turn into two and we would both still be in the same place with Mel's face caked in who knows what. Obviously, we thought it all to be absolutely necessary and that even with lip gloss in her eyebrows or lipstick on her cheeks that she was the spitting image of all those famous models that were splashed across the television and magazines.

After quite a bit of time would go by, our mom would wonder what we were doing, why we were so quiet and what kind of trouble we must be getting in to. We would hear her calling for us as she was coming up the stairs and quickly tried to hide all evidence that we were playing in her things, her expensive make-up that she had told us to leave alone time and time again. It was all in vein though as she would fling open the bathroom door and caught us both red handed, frozen like two baby deer in the bright headlights with looks on our faces that tried to convey both innocence and like nothing was wrong at all. We weren't doing anything that we weren't supposed to. We always hung out in the bathroom for no apparent reason and would come out walking with clown faces. It was completely normal.

Of course there wasn't any need for an explanation, for it was quite literally all over our faces.

Our mom couldn't help but laugh at us. I mean, who can yell at two little kids that resemble pancakes with melted strawberries all over them? You can't. It's impossible. Instead she grabbed her camera and took a picture of us both with cheesy smiles that were so big our eyes were scrunched shut.

**

This would be draft one of many...the assignment is due next week and I'm not sure how long or short it's supposed to be, but I'm going to leave it for a bit, come back and see if I want to make any changes. Look at me being all student-y and stuff.