Vanity

Vanity ©

By Michael Casey

I was walking down the road I’d just seen my pharmacist, no not a guy in a car handing out stuff from his window in exchange for 20quid. I was at the Pharmacy getting ear drops, and no living with 3 girls hasn’t made me deaf. It will be the death of me, but not make me deaf, yet, they are all much younger than me after all. I hope that explains the context, as writers are told to explain things.

No what I saw was an example of Vanity.  There was a small van with two blokes in it, one was on the phone, which was good for he was NOT driving, I’ve had enough of drivers trying to kill me while they are on the phone while driving. The driver, was leaning out the window so he could see himself in the wing mirror, then he was doing his hair. It made me smile, at least they were stopped in traffic for the moment. But hanging out the window to preen himself.

No of course I’m not vain at all, judging by the way I look as I go up the road to the shops. Well, I do comb my hair before I leave the house, and check my zipper too, but other than that I’m not vain at all. My mum used to shout after my brother “comb your hair, tuck your shirt in, you’ll shame me the neighbours will think I have a Tinker for a son!” Which gave me the idea for Mrs Murphy in my 1^st book The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker.

Are you vain? Well do you look at your own reflection as you walk up the road to the shops, pretending to be John Travolta, but looking more like the fat Secret Service guy, the one they call the body guy. Do you adjust your shades and triple check that zipper as you go past the butcher’s shop?

In Snow White it was “Mirror mirror on the Wall” and for all her scheming the wicked stepmother was NOT the fairest in the land, no the Donkey from Shrek was far prettier. Why does mutton dress up as lamb, and I’m not talking about the butcher’s wife either. Why do women try to look far younger when they should grow old gracefully. Though  to be balanced men are just as bad nowadays.

Footballers will ditch their WAGs because they can, because they earn in one week what most of us will earn in 10 years or even 20 years. And yes  if MU are still looking I am available, though I’m older than the manager and weight twice as much, but just let me play for one week, then I can retire happy.

In days of old a glimpse of stocking was shocking, now anything goes. With skirts up to their ar ars , archipelago, WAGs and even the girls down the chip shop preen themselves to catch the boy with the perfect black hair. Just for men, includes hair dye, so boys can and will dye their hair, preening and vanity hand in hand. Yes she may smell of chips, but she’s like Every Ready batteries, lasts longer and she is ever ready.

Beauty products keep us all looking perfect, and if they don’t there is surgery, plastic  plastic plastic   what-evers, to keep your footballer on side, and away from the penalty zone. In the old days the bathroom shelf had one bottle of Vosene, that was  green in colour if memory serves.

Now, now you need seven shelves, lotions and potions, for him, for her, and for the kids. You used to have one brand and one family shampoo that everybody used. Now there is pre shampoo, shampoo, after shampoo, and conditioner and that’s just for the men. Since being married and having two daughters my bathroom is under siege, it’s like invasion of the plastic bottles, I’m sure they are aliens in disguise. And the plastic bottles are reproducing too, I’m sure of it.

All of this is for our Vanity, didn’t there used to be bags called vanity bags that girls took away with them when they went away somewhere. Now we have manbags for men’s vanity too. It’s all so confusing or am I just getting old and greyer/whiter. A spit on the hand and a dab on the head was all you needed to keep your hair down, now its styling gel. Looks more like pigeon dumped on your head, and 8 year olds use it already.

I’m all in favour of beauty, I mean I pull my nasal hair out when it’s too long, I’m  sophisticated like that, a real new man. And why do you sneeze when you pull nasal hair out? I’m not vain either I keep my bushy eyebrows, despite my girls asking when the caterpillars will turn into butterflies and fly away.

So why are we all so vain? Does it date back to cavemen days? You can share my catch and sleep on my hide if only  you comb your hair with that fish bone, and splash a little buffalo blood behind your ears. And then you can spend the night platting the hair on my back.