Hi there, guys and dolls! So what kind of weekend did you have? Oh well, never mind. I’m sure there will be livelier ones. Take mine, for instance. Or rather, Blanche’s. She’s the one who started the whole danged thing.

Now we need to go back a bit as I need to to tell you the complete and true story, as told to me by Tracy, who heard it from Debbie, that got the gist of it from Debby, who swears that Rita May says it’s what she overheard from Madge as Blanche told her in the checkout line at the Shoprite.

So where was I? Oh right, Blanche. See, she and her husband Phil had a big bust up when he got a load of all her charge accounts from her spring wardrobe replenishing shopping spree last month. (I mean, really. What’s a girl to do? Doesn’t he understand how expensive and how high the maintenance is for a gal to look her best and one up the neighborhood hussies? What with all the divorcees moving in, it’s getting even harder for someone like Blanche, who let’s face it, is certainly on the long end of that certain age….)

The end of the argument was Phil telling her that if she wanted to keep spending money like that, she better earn it. Fine by her, she didn’t mind getting a job! Oh, the glamour, the independence, the excitement. The…hmm, what was she exactly trained in, anyway?

Turns out she was a Pink Pussycat Exotic Dancer. That’s how she trapped, er met, her darling Phil in the first place. Now this is something we did not know, given the fact that she can nowadays pop the hinges on the most generous of girdles, and we can tell the time by looking at the shade of the sun by her chin(s), although we don’t tell her that. Obviously, she couldn’t go back to that. Ever. That ship has sailed (or sunk). Really.

Then it dawned on her – a Beauty Salon, right out of their very own home! The garage would be perfect. Phil could always park his Buick on the street (she’d need the driveway parking for clients, natch), and he wouldn’t mind. Well, not really. Not when she showed him how enthusiastic she was, or how much money she could make! Why, he could retire, in say, about twenty years then….

The only thing was that she needed training. That wouldn’t be that much, would it? Oh, that much? Well, an investment in their future, she could say. Oh, and supplies, equipment. One trip to the beauty wholesalers, and Bob’s your uncle (if she slips in the mortgage loan with Billy’s school permission slip after Phil’s third beer, he’d be none the wiser). Oh, these plans were going so smoothly, weren’t they?

All went well till there were a few little bumps in the road. Such as, she was really bad at it. As in mixing up the color dyes (who knew that Debby’s hair could go the shade of lime jell-o, with the texture to match), that one could get so intoxicated with permanent fumes that pink elephants knew how to dance and sing (just ask Sue Ellen…) or that Tracy could end up with an up-do and swoop that would have to grow out, not wash out (I swear that grey goop of a setting lotion Blanche concocted was cement…).

Yet Blanche was not undetermined. However, Phil was when he got the bank statement. So long, Blanche’s Beauty Salon. Phil decided it was much more economical to go back to the way things were. And I hear Blanche is on her way to New York City to get some new summer togs!

All’s well that ends well, as Willie once said…

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more posts. And don’t forget to give my Poppy Cove Mysteries a try if you haven’t already.

Toodles, Barbara Jean