Read My Lips: No More Tickets (Please Sir)

Mom was right.  Not just about wearing clean underwear should you, God forbid, get into a car accident but more importantly, Mom was right about the importance of lipstick.  You heard me right.  Even if I’m dressed in gym clothes, still sweating from my workout and just running to the store for one little item, like I did last Wednesday, I always take a few minutes to dab on a little lipstick.  A little lipstick goes a long way, transforming a completely disheveled-looking woman into a slightly disheveled-looking woman.  However, there is one thing lipstick can’t fix - bed head.  You’re on your own there.

Last Wednesday, I came home from the gym and started making Swedish meatballs for dinner.  Suddenly, I realized I forgot the key ingredient – sour cream. Without sour cream, Swedish meatballs are just little balls of meat in a pan with absolutely zero Scandinavian flair.

While my little meatballs waited patiently to become Swedish, I quickly ran to the grocery store down the street.  In the checkout line, as I expertly scanned a copy of US Weekly trying to get all the little juicy nubs of gossip without actually having to buy the magazine, I must have been a sight to behold.  Dressed in yoga pants and a crumbled, sweaty tank top, hair matted to my face, half of it up in a messy pony tail and no make up on.  Without my usual foundation to smooth everything out and hide those blemishes, my face felt naked and pale.  In fact,  I might have looked as pale as one of those vampires in the Twilight Saga were it not for that dab of lipstick, which thankfully brought some color and vitality to my face. (Thanks, Mom!)  Looking only at my perfectly applied lipstick (with lip liner, I might add), I was red carpet ready while the rest of my getup cried Fashion Police.  Stop and Shop would have to do for tonight.

The moral of this little vignette?  Always carry some lipstick.  Lip liner doesn’t hurt, either.  These two items have gotten me out of some real doozies and most recently, they got me out of a parking ticket at the Bethel Train Station.

Now, believe me, I’ve gotten my fair share of tickets, mostly for parking in metered spaces and failing to (a) put any money in at all, or (b) having put money in, successfully selecting the only non-working parking meter in the lot.  On this particular morning, it was option (b), but I was wasn’t about to sit back and be unjustly ticketed.  Was it my fault that the parking meter didn’t operate correctly?

Back in my car, I looked around for a pen and a piece of paper that I could leave on the dashboard for the Bethel PD when they came around to patrol the lot, their trigger fingers on a stack of neon orange tickets.  The glove box, my bags and my purse all yielded the same thing:  no pen and no paper.  Glancing at my watch, I had exactly one minute and 45 seconds until the train was due to figure out a solution.

Frantically, I dumped the contents of my purse on the passenger seat .  A pack of gum, expired CVS coupons, a  bobby pin, tissues, clear nail polish, lipstick and lip liner.  I half wondered if I could assemble some sort of explosive device, but my thoughts were interrupted by the train’s whistle.  It was getting closer.  I grabbed a tissue and using the lip liner as a pencil, I scrawled the first thing that came to mind:  Dear Sir,  Please. NO TICKET! Meter broken! Please sir. Thank you.

I frowned at my choppy, bright red scribble.  Something was missing.  I quickly re-applied my red lipstick and carefully blotted my lips on the tissue, leaving a perfect outline -  Marilyn Monroe-esque.  Satisfied, I propped the tissue on the dash, grabbed my stuff and ran towards the train.  There’s nothing quite like running for the train in high heels first thing in the morning, wild-eyed and breathless.  By the time I reached the train, I was rumpled and disheveled, but, by God, I had my lipstick on.  I had my lipstick on. 

There was no ticket that day and I couldn’t have done it without the support of a few key people.  So, I’d like to close by thanking the Academy, the Bethel Police Department, MacGyver and most importantly, my Mom, who taught me everything a girl needs to know.