I don’t know if there was a pivotal moment in my life when I realized I am vain. But the fact that I will drop six hundred dollars on a cosmetic procedure that promises to fool the world into thinking I must have delivered my first child at the age of twelve pretty much proves that I am.
And that I am willing to pay for it.
Perhaps I should do what everyone these days does when a character flaw is acknowledged: blame my parents. After all, they did install a fun house style mirror in my crib intending to entertain my developing infant mind. I am sure this is the root of my problem as it’s obviously impossible to develop a normal self image when you start out life believing your forehead is the size of a basketball and all of your facial features are squashed onto your chin.
Convenient finger pointing parental screw-up aside, the fact is that I am now a vain adult who cuts coupons to save two dollars on cat food but doesn’t blink one eyelash extension at spending three hundred dollars on teeth whitening. (It can take ten years off. Seriously.)
Don’t get me wrong, under “this color cost as much as a car payment” hairstyle, I do care about ecological and humanitarian issues: melting polar ice caps, droughts in Africa, and how to make my $30 spray tan last a full two weeks. Whoops! Did I just type that out loud? I mean the topic that Anderson Cooper is shedding light on from 360 degrees tonight on CNN. Yeah, what he said. I care about that too.
Although the reality is that I am not out right now mobilizing my neighborhood to save Darfur with Anderson, but am instead home “recovering” (i.e. hiding my swollen face from the outside world) from my latest vanity endeavor: “filler” shots of Restalyn injected into my laugh lines to disguise the fact that I was born in 1972, not 1982.
The result? Well, so far I’ve come to the conclusion that my top lip may never move again considering how much nerve blocking material it has absorbed. Before this experience I never even realize it was humanly possible to speak with one’s top lip impersonating granite; it’s actually not that hard. Apparently the top lip’s contribution to speech is slight. Only the phrase “top lip” is actually hard to say in this condition.
With the possibility of indefinite disfigurement looming and the reality I could end up being forever mistaken for the love child of Joan Rivers and Kenny Rogers, I find myself second guessing whether all these vanity seeking expenditures were worth it. The fact is: beauty ain’t cheap. It’s downright expensive. So much so, that perhaps I could find a better use for this money, pursue the preservation of humanity not vanity.
Considering the annual amount of cash I invest to keep time’s cruel evidence off my face, dyed into obscurity in my hair, and out of my size four jeans (treadmill, gym membership, iPod to rock out to while I sweat off miscellaneous Starbucks carbs, it all adds up), the grand total of all these expenditures could most certainly equal enough cash to serve up a monthly all you can eat Midwestern style pancake and sausage breakfast buffet to a third world village every Sunday for a year. Or two. (Face it, pancake mix is dirt cheap and we all know it. The sausage, now that might get pricey. Okay, cut out the sausage. Monthly for five years. Just pancakes, but we’d have to make sure no one was going overboard with the syrup. And no Aunt Jamima. Pouring syrup out of her plastic little head is pointless branding that would just end up creating unnecessary overhead and cheating my village out of at least six months of breakfasts. I digress.)
It’s time someone made a real contribution to the world’s problems, and what better way to start than by siphoning cash from this selfish wasteland into causes that truly matter. And who better to blaze the trail than me and my immobilized top lip? After all, I do have depth, and I do care about more than just a good pedicure. (Even though everyone knows if you aren’t going to invest in a good one, open toe heels are not meant for hooves like that. Sorry Grandma.)
Therefore, in the name of humanity, not vanity, I vow to the following:
Should my upper lip never move again, should I forever resemble a plastic mask, I promise to: (deep breath, this is big for me):
Sue the pants off the manufacturing company that created this garbage I just put in my face!
And . . . with the resulting millions, I promise to give Anderson Cooper every last cent.
Voila! I will have just saved the entire world in fell suing swoop!
Wait a second, hold on . . . “top lip, top lip, top lip.” Well, what do you know? In the time it took to write this essay, I can move my lip again.
Sigh.
Oh well, Anderson. I tried.
But really, Coop, buddy, you must do something about that grey head of yours. It is really aging you. Call me. My stylist is a magician.
And all it will cost you (and my African village) is couple hundred pancake breakfasts.
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P.S. Holy crap is he the hottest man alive or what? I am sorry but he's amazing. And I'm a conservative! I'd go 360 degrees with YOU any time, Coop! (Does anyone else know he is Gloria Vanderbilt's son? Try to ignore my meaningless "People Magazine" type sidebar.) My next read is going to be his new book, "Dispatches from the Edge" which chronicles his experiences in the Katrina Aftermath. I've read his writing previously and he is a captivating writer. Coop rant done. Kutz out.)
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