Hooked on Acid

Some people are hooked on the classics.

Some kids are hooked on phonics.

Today, I became addicted to acid.

No, silly, I'm not talking about the drugs!  I'm talking about paying someone to purposefully rub acid all over your face to peel off dead skin!  Doesn't that sound better?  (Let me preface this post by saying that OF COURSE I am going to Parent Teacher Conferences, don't beat me up.)

Let's get in the not-so-way-back machine.  My attorney, who is a fantastic friend even when she isn't bearing gifts, gave me a lovely gift card to my favorite spa (well, okay, my ONLY spa, really, and usually I just get my hair cut) Five Star Salon & Spa, which I highly recommend if you are winging through the Quad Cities area.  My attorney intended for me to get a pedicure, but when she discovered I had never experienced the facials at Five Star, she steered me on the proper path to Frank Costanza's Serenity Now.

I called and booked my appointment, and found that the special of the month was a free upgrade to a facial peel, and would I like one?  You had me at Free.  I was feeling the bliss already, and then I took a moment to look at my calendar.  I thought I had bucked the system...in addition to the new full-time job, Monday is cello, dance and football, Tuesday is football and maybe another cello session, Wednesday is piano and dance, Thursday is football, and Friday is usually full of one of their social obligations.  I know, you're saying "Well that's your own damn fault, your kids are overbooked".  As much as I would love to agree with you, we let them pick two activities outside of school, and one has to be music and one has to be exercise-related.  Two activities times three kids equals pain in the ass at night.  It is my fault and I acknowledge that fact, but it makes it hard to book anything during the week, plus there is always homework, dinner, and that ever-elusive family time.  I booked the appointment, happy that most of our activities start NEXT week and I had dodged THAT bullet, and 48 hours later discovered I had booked my appointment on my kids' elementary school curriculum night.

Crapola.

I called the spa the next day, so sorry, the only day I had open in the next two weeks was already booked solid. Hmmm.  Facial vs. Curriculum Night.  Curriculum Night vs. Facial.

"Is there ANY chance I can get in next Tuesday?  It's Curriculum Night at my kids' school."  I asked.

"I'm so sorry, we really are booked that night."  She smiled apologetically and looked at me for an answer.  Should I give it up?  I could always try again in September.  Oh.  Nope. September is booked with things I will go into later.  But October has possibilities....

"Damn.  This would be the first Curriculum Night I've missed."

"I'm curious...what do they DO at Curriculum Night?" the girl asked.

"Well, you meet the teacher, they talk for 30 minutes about what your child will be learning, and then you look around the school."

"Have you met your kids' teachers?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Have you looked around the school?"

"Um...yeah."

"Have you had other kids in these grades?"  

"yes," I said meekly.  "I'll keep the appointment."  I am so going to Mommy hell.  The girl smiled broadly and patted my hand.  "You won't regret it."

And she was wrong.  I did regret it.  Terribly.  I was being eaten up with guilt.  First I run out and get a full-time job.  Then I make OD watch her younger sibs for the last two weeks of summer.  Then I sort of stopped cooking.  Now I'm bailing on the first parent night of the year.  To get a facial.  June Cleaver stood next to me, her gloved hands crossed, tsking and shaking her head.

I also started worrying about the acid on my face for the facial.  Every time I get my lip waxed, I sport this pink Hitler mustache for a few hours afterward.  I told my co-worker I was getting a peel, and she said, "That sounds like it's going to hurt".  Yes.  Yes it did.  As I left work today I told her that if I showed up for work in a burqua tomorrow, something had gone terribly wrong.

I know.  Just like Samantha.

I walked into Five Star tonight still feeling bad about missing the school event.  "I should be at the school," I thought.  They called me upstairs, and A met me as I was finishing my water.  "Hi!" she said.  "Hi.  This is what I want to look like when this is over."  I held up this month's Elle magazine, which was sitting on the waiting room table:

 "You wouldn't believe how many people say that," she said.

So now I'm a bad mother AND unoriginal.  

 The facial began, and I stared at the ceiling and thought about my kids.  And then I thought about how great the cleanser smelled.  And then I thought about how nice the steam was on my face.  And then I thought about how lovely it is to have one's face massaged.  And then she put on the acid, and I thought, "That isn't so bad," and she said, "How is it?" and I said, "I can feel it tingling" and she said "Great, I'll let that work for a few minutes" and about 30 seconds later it morphed from tingling to a slight burn to a bigger burn to a rather burny burn and I thought "My God, this is what Bella felt like when Edward injected the venom in her heart, where is she?  Make it stop!" but I sat like a good, rigid, uptight girl who wants to look like Julia Roberts and won't look a gift card in the mouth.

In what was probably two minutes but felt like twenty, Firestarter came back and wiped all of the liquid propane off of me.  She then put a fabulously hot washcloth around my face, and some cool pads on my eyes, and she massaged my neck, shoulders and arms, and I thought about how much I love my attorney friend, but in a purely platonic way.  As quickly as it started, it was over.  Over?!?  NOOOO!!!!!

I looked in the mirror, and didn't see any open wounds or even red burns.  I actually saw glowy looking smooth skin.  Even my one throwback-to-thirteen zit I was sporting by my nose looked pretty and decorative.  I wasn't Julia Roberts, but I was a pretty damn good version of Julie The Wife.  I turned and asked Firestarter the one thing I needed to know:


"What are you doing during Parent - Teacher conferences?"

Because if I'm going down, I'm going down in flames.