No time to worry about skin tone
Are We There Yet?
Lori Clinch

My skin care consultant called me the other day and said it was time to rethink my skin.

“With summer quickly approaching, we’re going to have to work fast if we plan to revive your appearance. Your wrinkle patches need rejuvenated, your skin is dry, and if you don’t start an exfoliation process soon, I swear I won’t even consider letting you link my name to your beauty regimen.”

A couple of crinkles and a saggy chin, and you’d think I was falling apart at the seams.

I told her I thought my regimen was doing fine. My skin stretches here, tugs there, and I’m fairly certain there was a time in February when I pulled on my cheek and it bounced back into place in less than a week.

“But you’ve got to be running low on the 37-step program we set you up with last fall,” she said with disbelief. “It was only a 30-day supply.”

I didn’t know what to say. I still have an ample supply of Age-Fighting eye cream. My Facial Firming cream was still plentiful, and my jar of Nighttime Exuberance for the Middle-Aged Vixen still sat unopened on the bathroom counter.

It’s not my fault that I don’t have time to worry about skin tone. How can a mother, such as myself, serve a husband, kids and an automatic dishwasher, and still have time to worry about exfoliation? I’m lucky to get the sheets pulled back before I fall into bed at night.

I suspect I have only myself to blame. I had good intentions of raising a family that could make their own toast. I’d planned on teaching them how to replace the toilet paper on the spool, pack their own lunches, and when the time was right, I’d fully planned to conduct a sock-mating seminar.

Other women seem to manage so much better than I. My friend, Estelle, for example, has time for both a beauty regimen and a freshly decorated home. Her children do their own homework, mate their own socks, and if her mornings unfold as she tells it, they load up into the car with smiles and head off for school like the Brady Bunch on Prozac.

I could really hate a woman like Estelle. Yet I couldn’t help being mesmerized.

“How the heck do you do it?” I asked as I resisted the urge to slap her.

“Well,” she said as her ego shone through, “I start with the children and a white load every morning, and things just flow naturally from there. Hubert is in charge of changing the linens on Tuesday and Thursday. Mimsy cleans the windows after school, and if the floor is not vacuumed by 6 o’clock every evening, well, we’ve only young Hector to blame.”

“What do you do if the children disobey?”

“Oh, they’d never disobey,” she said as she went pale with the thought. “I forbid it.”

She forbids it.

Gosh, I wish I’d thought of that.

“Family,” I said the very next night over supper, “things are going to change around here. My freedom is limited, and my minutes are scarce. It’s high time I free up some time and you are just the people to help me. Now what, if anything, can we as a family unit do to help out yours truly?”

My family reacted the same way they usually do with regard to meetings and change: with absolute horror.

“I have a list of names,” I continued on as if my audience was attentive. “I also have an index of chores and a cute little roster of responsibilities for all of those involved. We’ll start with the unloading of the dishwasher. Do I have any volunteers?”

“Vernon dirties more glasses than anyone,” reported Huey. “I think he should be in charge of the dishwasher.”

“Shut up, you little idiot,” retorted Vernon. “You’re the one who spends all of your time in the kitchen. You can do the dishwasher chore.”

“OK,” I said, “It’s time to move on to the bathroom list, and the good news is that I have a fun little demo all lined up for this chore. Is anyone familiar with this?”

I was met with wide eyes and blank stares.

“This nifty little gadget,” I said as I held up the toilet paper spool, “not only holds a roll of tissue but can be spun quite readily in the toilet paper distribution process. Would anyone like a presentation, or do you all think you are properly prepared to test out now?”

“I’d be confident to test out now,” said Vernon. “Yet I’d prefer to test in an area that doesn’t involve your bathroom. Your supplies are getting out of hand.”

“Yeah,” said Huey. “If you actually used some of that stuff, you’d be as pretty as Estelle.”

That’s the funny thing about kids. They really bring things around to a full circle.

Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book “Are We There Yet?” Her e-mail address is lclinch@charter.net.