Lipstick

"Its time you started wearing makeup," my mother said.

"Its kinda a hassle in the morning...and you can smell it all day when you wear it."

"Here," my she said, plunking something down in front of the keyboard I was typing at.

"Huh?"

"Its lipstick."

That much was accurate, it was technically lipstick. It was an appalling shade of light red that flirted a bit too dangerously with orange tones. I didn't hate makeup, I just mostly didn't care enough to bother with it. I sat there with the item in my hand thinking of the most delicate way to phrase this: if I was going to wear makeup I wanted to wear something subtle and...while I wasn't keen to go shopping for it myself it was pretty evident that I would need to in order for anything I actually wanted to wear to appear in.

"This is really nice Mom, but you don't need to do this for me."

"Somebody's got to or you'll never grow up."

I let that comment slide and ignored the statement. My mother seemed displeased with my silence.

"You know," she coaxed, trying another tactic, "the reason everybody thinks you are so young is because you don't wear makeup...come on, put some on...the boys will love you...that is if you would just stop scaring them off..."

I was a little annoyed so I didn't respond to that either. I'll spare you the details but Mom got progressively ruder from that point until I got fed up and started being rude back. This didn't result in anything positive as the situation escalated and she finally screamed at me, "Listen! You take this gift, you ungrateful little brat, and you are going to use it do you hear me? I don't care what you think! You are going to use this!"

"Fine!" I shouted, picking up the lipstick and storming off to the downstairs bathroom. In proper 16-year old style I slammed the door and then slunk down along it so I sat leaned back against it, feet flat on the floor, knees curled up, glaring at the bottom of the sink cabinets.

I sat there for a good five minutes before I procured a multi-tool from my pocket and opened the blade. A few good slices and the lipstick had a point on it.

F=ma

I grinned at my work on the mirror. I felt like an important scientist writing on a really expensive blackboard, and I enjoyed watching the copy of myself in the mirror reach forward to write in the same fugly orange-pink color.

A free-body diagram followed, and finishing the physics problem I sharpened the lipstick again to go for another round on my skin. Leaning between illustrations of the force vectors I started writing physics equations on my arms and face until the majority of my exposed body was covered. I wandered out of the bathroom with the remains of the lipstick in hand.

"Where are you going?" my mother asked, getting a look at my war-paint.

Prior to that question it hadn't occurred to me that I would go anywhere. I was just wearing the lipstick, and technically you could say this was just as I had been instructed. I paused for a second before testing a response, "Out."

"You can't go out like that."

"Why not?"

"You'll embarrass yourself."

"I'm not embarrassed."

"You can't go out, it would be embarrassing." She looked genuinely concerned and nervous.

It was then when it truly struck me. My mother found me an embarrassment. She wanted to help me be what she considered a presentable person, but moreover she was embarrassed that I might be any sort of reflection on her. Image meant a great deal to my mother, and I was ruining it.

"Ah," I said, weighing my options. I could go embarrass my mom or deal with a war...or back off and see if she did too. There did not seem to be any negative to backing off, as I could always re-cover myself in lipstick if I really wanted to piss her off.

"I'll stay inside," I said.

My mother looked relieved and past then took a tone of condescending dismissal. She made me clean my artwork, called me hopeless, told me I would never have a boyfriend, that everybody would always treat me like I am young, and that it was my own fault if I didn't know what was good for me.

I felt it was pretty worth it though. At the very least she never told me I didn't have a choice about wearing lipstick again.