DESCRIPTION
This was a little observation of a day of shopping in Melbourne. After all, shopping is such a wonderful and inspirational experience for me. It's amazing the people you can meet... [702 words]
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
A girly-girl with an eccentric family and a will to wear earmuffs and get away with it. My stories are just observations of life and fashion that need to be told from a perky perspective! [April 2006]
AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (1) The Family Gathering (Short Stories) A short story about my very crazy family. Highlights include having a party in a cemetary, and Cousin 'I'm a bad pirate' John. [726 words] [Humor]
A Shopping Excursion Hanna Rose Ashton-Lawson
My two best friends Ericah, Erin and I were
wandering about in Melbourne Central Shopping
Center after attending an art lecture at RMIT.
I was on the hunt for shorts (“Um, I don’t know
Ericah. Sporty ones I guess. Uh, ones that don’t
look like underwear. Mmm, not like the last ones.”)
We were ambling towards Morning Glory- purveyor
of Hello Kitty Mobile phone covers and Blue Bear
notebooks, when I was ambushed by a nasty headache.
Panadol was needed if I was to continue the hunt
of the short-shorts. Melbourne Central has a LOT
of shops. It’s all very well for those days when
you’re wandering around aimlessly between the
Korean Bread shop and Pooch Outfits R Us, but
were looking for a shop! A chemist. Any chemist.
Hello Kitty would have to wait.
We found a store directory on the food court level
(out of interest, it was very close to the Korean
Bread shop). It wasn’t any old store directory
however, it was a ‘welcome to the Space Age,
touch-screen, animated instructions store
directory.
We prodded our way through the “health store”
options, past health food shops and aromatherapy
stores, until we found our treasured chemist.
Ericah poked at the option, and a new page
appeared on the screen. “You are here” confirmed
a man’s voice that boomed out of the speaker,
(yeah like we didn’t know…). An arrow danced
across the screen and wiggled around, directing
us towards escalators and along walkways.
With a clear indication of where to go, we bade
Animated Touch-Screen Store Directory goodbye,
then continued on our journey through Valley-Girl
Heaven. When we finally arrived out our
destination, eye-rolling was necessary because
the chemist was situated right beside the entrance.
The exact entrance that we had come in at. Ugh.
I spotted the packets of paracetamol behind the
counter, so I asked the shop assistant for a
twelve-pack of Panadol. She glanced at me
uninterestedly. I stared back with interest. While
I may seem cruel and my description might sound
brutal, I must say that her make-up was terrible.
It looked (and forgive me for saying this) a
little “Emily Howard”, a bit “Little Britain-esque”.
All over her face the foundation (two shades too
dark) and powder (flaking off) was caked on. I
suspected that a trowel or small spade may have
assisted in the application of the offending make-
up job. It was her lips though, that captured my
fascination. This woman’s style icon must have
been the always classy Pamela Anderson, or even
possibly the grotesquely breasted Lolo Ferrari. I
have reason to believe this because this woman’s lipstick and lip liner job was very similar to that fashioned by Pammy and Lolo.
She favoured a beige-brown lipstick, but had most
unfortunately selected an extremely dark lip liner.
Dark lip liner with pale lipstick.
I realise that there will be someone out there who
can achieve a certain degree of stylishness while
modelling this “look”, but I am yet to meet her.
Feel free to prove me wrong, but I believe that
this make-up look should be avoided. Always.
Now normally I’d overlook certain things like that,
but there was something else that made me observe
her lips with a interest. The outer line looked as
though it had been applied with a crayon. A big,
thick dark coloured crayon. The kind that can be
found at the very bottom of a “10 items for 10
cents” bin at St Vincent De Pauls.
“No,” said those poorly sketched children’s
drawing lips, “we don’t stock Panadol.” Her
mascara clogged eyes glared at me as she paused
for a moment. “The smallest we stock is this
packet of thirty,”
“Oh,’ I replied, taken aback, “um so there are no
smaller ones?”
“No,” said Clown Lips coldly, “This is what we
have.” In other words “take it bitch, this is it.”
I unwillingly paid the $6.49 for the jumbo packet
of painkillers (‘Your Chemist’ brand), and left
the store with Ericah and Erin by my side.
“She was mean!” I exclaimed, immediately losing
all sympathy for her unfortunate make-up
application. Ericah smiled craftily, “Did you
see her lips?”
I didn’t end up needing the painkillers because my
headache went away almost instantaneously and
Ericah had to carry the huge box in her handbag
because it wouldn’t fit in mine.
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