One Whipped Mother

Cosmetics Line Raises the Dead!

Children, gather round, set a spell and rest your aging, weary, perhaps overweight and pimpled bodies, for Mama Lori has a story to tell. It is a story filled with wonder, hope, reanimated corpses, and, of course, lipstick.

Some of the following is based on fact, but most of it is from my warped imagination -- I will leave it to you to decide which is which. I wrote this after having attended a cosmetics party last night, an event that I was forced to attend by the nose of a twenty gauge shotgun, and I admit, loyalty and genuine affection for the darling innocent who threw said party. I spent sixty-four dollars on three items, not because I was suckered by the “independent consultant’s” intriguing though impossible claims, but because of my genuine affection and loyalty to that darling innocent. A darling innocent who will probably hate my guts after reading this, but I hope realizes eventually that this is meant in good fun.

And so, we begin…

In a land far, far away, during a time long ago, there lived a man named Petter Myørck, and he was a humble man, and he was a good man. One day, as Petter Myørck was sitting in his favorite café, dining al fresco on diced citrus fruits, fresh oysters snuggled in a bed of sea salt, and weak tea, watching passersby with minimal interest, there appeared to him a homely, naked, time-ravaged hag named Heidi. As if from a dream, Heidi materialized in front of the startled Petter with a loud bang, thus causing poor Petter to flail his arms wildly, knocking tea cup, platter of fruits, and bed of oysters to his lap. The apparition before him smiled knowingly, and pointed her cracked, unsightly nail at the spoiled lunch oozing over Petter’s lap. Embarrassed, Petter began to wipe the mess with a napkin, but the hag shook her head vigorously, floated to his side, and curtly slapped his hand. Confused, Petter shrugged his shoulders and said, “What? I should leave this mess to ruin my trousers? Woman, be gone!”

Finally, the homely Heidi spoke, but not with word -- she gently gathered the citrus, the sea salt, the tea into her malformed hands and began to rub the sweet-smelling concoction over her entire body. She rubbed and scrubbed and smoothed and massaged until a curious thing happened, a remarkable and spectacular thing…Transfixed, Petter couldn’t help but watch as the once hideous, pockmarked, cellulitic, sagging, psoriasis-ridden Heidi morphed into an unlined, slender, firm, rosacea-free young woman. She was breath-taking. Petter gasped and shifted in his chair so as to hide his emerging trouser monster.

The now glamorous and societal beauty ideal smiled once again, then pirouetted gracefully, her de-spotted hands fluttering like exotic white butterflies, and the napkins, the restaurant check, the table cloth all rose up together like an ocean current, the materials ebbing when she lowered her hands, then rising when she did that weird pirouette thing again.

Barely able to speak, Petter said, “You-you are trying to tell me that natural botanical cosmetics will be the wave of the future?

She nodded.

“And, I am to be the founder of a company that sells such products?”

Again, she nodded. Then she surprised Petter by swiping the money he’d placed in his shirt pocket in anticipation of paying his lunch bill, and promptly stuffed the coins into her gleaming, plump mouth. Aghast, Petter watched as Heidi swallowed his hard-earned cash, licked her alluring red lips, then threw back her head of luxurious black hair and laughed herself into oblivion.

“No! Wait, please!” Petter shouted at the foggy, shimmering outline. “Beautiful lady, I have so many questions! Why did you eat my money? It was all I had! And what is your number?”

But she disappeared entirely, leaving behind only the residue of sea salt and the tang of citrusy goodness. Petter was angry, frightened, but he also was a smart man; he put two and two together fast as a scorpion injecting his prey with poisonous poison, and smiled.

“Thank you, lovely lady who used to be a hideous hag. Thank you for giving me the means to invade American pocketbooks, give false hope to the hopeless, attain immortality through corporate enterprise. I shall embark on this journey a humble man, and will end this voyage a corrupt one.”

He stood, gave the café’s proprietor the finger, and as he ran from the baseball bat -carrying pastry chef and shouting waiters, Petter shrieked “I shall attain wealth so immense, I’ll buy this shithole and burn it to the ground! HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!”

At first, Petter peddled door to door, displayed his homemade cosmetics to hapless hags throughout Switzerland, sold them by the wheelbarrowful with claims of renewed youth, slimmer thighs, radiant sex appeal, and as his business grew, he realized that he couldn’t do it alone, certainly wouldn’t be able to invade America by the power of only his one mouth. So he recruited others to do his bidding, and he called them “independent consultants.” He made promises of a white Mercedes Benz and outrageous monthly income to top sellers. He indoctrinated his followers with hours upon hours of rigorous acting classes, schooled his associates in the ways of screwing over the consumer with steady eye and beguiling best-buddy affectation. “Tell the wenches of your own supposed successes! Tell them of your transformations from hideous hags with gynecological problems and planter warts to healthy, beautiful sex kittens! Tell them you have witnessed the raising of dead loved ones with only one application of our three hundred dollar papaya-scented lotion to the corpse‘s body! Tell them! Run! Spread the news! Make them believe!”

And the wenches did believe, and there were many pocketbooks emptied, souls destroyed, and embittered greasy-faced hags left in the independent consultants’ wake. Petter Myørck, true to his word, bestowed a white Mercedes Benz to every single one of his top-selling consultants, though only for one year. After the one year lapsed, the luxury cars were spirited away to a used car dealer in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Petter Myørck died just as he’d envisioned: a very wealthy and corrupt man who attained immortality through corporate enterprise.

His distraught followers, self-professed “Myørck's Army,” attempted to raise their master from his cold grave, but only succeeded in making his rotting flesh smell really, really nice.

The end.

posted by Ms. Lori @ 11:17 AM