GRITTY WOMAN

Local Mom Shot Out of a Cannon

I like my underwear clean, but I’m no Stepford wife

Whenever I see an overly made-up mom at drop-off, who I know is going home to binge-watch Netflix, I wonder, “Why you gotta look so pretty?”

I want to pull her aside and say, “Honey, you’re free. You don’t have to do that anymore.”

“I do it for me,” a decorated mommy friend told me when I inquired about her early morning gorgeousness.

Here’s what I didn't ask her. It felt preachy, so I’m asking you instead. You’re probably never going to get back to me, are you? You’re too busy reapplying your powdery foundation due to the humidity that made you all shiny. So what? I’ve got makeup issues. Here’s my loaded question.

If you put on makeup and full-wardrobe when you’re taking your kids to school, and you’re not going into the office, do you have to keep looking in the mirror all day to make sure it’s still on? And if you don’t keep looking in the mirror all day, do you feel like you’ve wasted your pretty?

Maybe your pets appreciate your effort to look gorgeous. I don’t know. Do our pets know if we’re pretty? Does my dog know when I’m wearing makeup and when my hair is blowdried and moussed?

“It’s my routine,” another one of my fancy-faced mom friends informed me. “It’s how I wake up in the morning.”

I thought about my own routine. Making my son a peanut butter sandwich. Taking my dog out to poop. Boiling water for my benign pour-over decaf cup of coffee. Scrolling through Facebook, The New York Times, Medium, and Gmail. Blech. All that time wasted when I could be making myself beautiful!

I wondered if my existence would become more glorious if I made myself pretty every day instead of reading the horrid newspaper and putting dog poop in a baggie.

Was life different for women who showed up without coffee stains on their boobs? The last time I bought makeup was for my wedding 4,000 years ago. I think if I opened it, it would be like pouring out an urn.

Let me be clear about something. I’m not talking about women who have to go into the office or are on Zoom meetings all day. They gotta step up. I know. When we women are in the world, we’re not supposed to look like we got shot out of a cannon.

I’m talking to women who have the choice to sit in their bathrobe, nursing a Twinkie, and yet they choose hair spray, foundation, mascara, adult clothing, and uncomfortable shoes. This is COVID, women. No one’s stopping by except the UPS man, the Amazon person, and the mailperson. Ah, is that who the makeup’s for?

It reminds me of how my grandmother told me to wear clean underwear on the bus for those inconvenient bus rides when someone said, “Okay, clothes off everyone. I’m checking for clean underwear.”

I love clean underwear. I’m just not looking for my third husband at my kid’s pickup. You look nice, by the way, all you dressed up pretty moms, but I prefer looking like I got shot out of a cannon. I’m MILF proof.