Oh, the decisions about looks

Karen and I were meeting up on a secret beauty mission. En route to the appointment, I talked to two other friends on my cell phone.

Karen, one of my best friends, is a Grammy-nominated Southern gospel music artist who has had several number one records. When both friends learned that I was on my way to rendezvous with her, they mentioned that they had seen Karen performing on television a couple of days earlier.

“Tell her that she looked great!” Debbie said.

“Tell her that she sounded great!” Pinky instructed.

Dutifully, I reported both comments as we waited for our beauty appointment.

“How sweet,” Karen demurred softly, smiling. Now, before we go any further, you should know that Karen is a fashion maven. No trend slips by her unnoticed or untried. She is the first to wear it, though if it’s too trendy, she must put a conservative spin to it. After all, she’s a gospel music performer where knees or cleavage can never, under any circumstance, be revealed.

I furrowed a brow and asked, “Which would you prefer? To sound great or look great?”

It was a deep question and one that was not quickly answered. In fact, Karen was completely baffled. I was glad that I didn’t have to answer it.

Her eyes widened, almost in horror. “I don’t know. Oh, my gosh. I don’t know.” She mumbled back and forth about it then said, “This is terrible. I know I should say ‘sound great’ because I’ve made my living singing for over 20 years! But I don’t know.” She bit her lower lip.

After a debate of several minutes – by the way, I was NO help on this – I commented thoughtfully, “Well, maybe you could sound so great that no one would even notice how you looked.”

“That’s it,” she agreed, nodding. “That would work.”

I know we’re vain. It’s not anything we’re proud of, especially Karen who sings for the Lord. After all, vanity is one of the seven deathly sins. I, though, have a bit more leeway in such matters. We do seek, however, to keep it at bay as much as possible. Sloppiness is a sin, too. At least it is on my list because it leads to sloth, definitely one of the seven deadly sins. So, it’s all a matter of finding the right measure and tip-toeing down that fine line.

As fate would have it, the following morning, it was reported on the news that women spend an average of two years of their life getting ready to go out while men spend an average of seven months. Like we women would be surprised by that.

I’ve never known a man who took longer than 15 minutes to dress. With me, I can hurriedly do it in 30 minutes (this is merely presentable), moderately finish in 45 minutes (good hair, perfect eye liner) or leisurely prepare in one hour (this is the best I’m going to get).

I called Karen. “They say the national average is two years but I calculated for you and me and it looks more like three plus years. Is that good?”

“Hmmm,” she murmured. “Probably not. We don’t want to be too extreme. We might need to scale it back a few minutes a day, just so we can get back in line with the national average.”

We’re working on that but haven’t gotten there yet. That’s okay, though. Who wants to be average anyway? I think that’s way over-rated.