It started out innocently enough. I was going to a writer's meeting and wanted to go 70s. So I brought my headscarf to my daughter for "adjusting". Yeah, right.

She took one look at me, rolled her all-knowing teenage eyes and set out to do the impossible: make mom presentable for public viewing.

Now, I wasn't born under a rock or anything but apparently my daughter thinks I was. With all the grandeur of a surgeon she said, "Comb." "Brush." "Mousse." With artistic precision she gave me the hairstyle of a thirteen-year-old. This girl has gorgeous long hair and is the epitome of a teenage cheerleading Barbie. I am the epitome of a working single mom who doesn't have the time or money for beauty salons.

So we get the hairstyle the way she likes it.

"Honey, these two strands are in my eyes."

Mo-ther, that's how they're suppose to be." (I can hear her thinking: How on earth have I put up with Mom all these years?)

"Now your makeup." She proceeds to powder me, color me and gloss me until a stranger looks back at me in the mirror.

"I'm going to a meeting, not on a date."

"Well, maybe you should, Mom. Quit saying no when you're asked out."

I grumbled something under my breath as I leave about a certain place freezing over. She just smiled and returned to her bedroom.

Now as luck would have it, I couldn't find the meeting. I really tried. I looked on all three floors of the library and as I got out of the elevator in defeat to go home, I ran into a friend from church. He invited me to go out for Italian food. We laughed and talked for over two hours and I was reminded of how fun it was to be just in the company of a man again.

Hmmm....I wonder what my daughter can do for me for New Year's Eve?

Copyright 2004 Monica M