S*** Shower and Shave

There is no turning back.

But there are two rest stops between mile marker whatever where I am melting the polar ice caps from the interior of my car, and Scott's house.

Two opportunities to assess the damages and bathe like the indigent do in public rest rooms. I have reached a new low. Glad I brought my shades. Glad I am in a foreign zip code.

I stop at the first one. As pleasant an experience as one might expect. Insufficient women's bathroom facilities. Lines of women and whining toddlers as far as the eye can see and sound can travel. No opportunity for a little privacy. Or a leisurely zshzsh. Or a little basic environmental cleanliness. And it is as hot as the Congo.

After what seems like a dog's life (Jeopardy theme playing in my head all the while) I am granted entrance to a stall. Size of a broom closet. Fetid. Brimming with germs and bacteria of superhuman strength. No place to hang my purse.

Is this a test?

But necessity is the mother of all invention, so I get to inventing. I unbuckle my pants and prepare to pee. I loop the straps of my purse over my head and leave it to dangle from my scrawny neck and rest against my chest. I summon what remains of my leg strength and my limited ability to remain upright so that I can hover above the Petri dish of a toilet bowl to pee. I am sure this will end in disaster.

And then I have a Camp Fire girls stroke of genius. I recall that my Mary Poppins sized fake fur purse, which is currently testing the tensile strength of the tendons in my neck, is the current home to a trial sized bottle of body lotion that belongs to my daughter, a job fair giveaway bottle of hand sanitizer, and a moist towelette packet, courtesy of the germophobe Middle School nurse. I feel like the passengers of the S.S. Minnow when they found the trunk of Ginger's dresses.

I am sure the alcohol content of the sanitizing products was not optimal for use on one's entire neck and torso but the fact that it lowered my body temperature 10 degrees on contact made it perimenopausal gold. The moist towelette was better than a any gym class shower and gave me a nice citrusy clean, albeit clinical scent that blended nicely with the tutti-fruity lotion from my daughter's extensive collection of girly notions.

Reasonably confident that I could rejoin polite society without attracting attention, or at least the cross-section of humanity currently milling about the filthy tiles of the rest stop lavatory, I removed the purse from my neck and stepped outside to belly up to the sinks and (smeary) mirrors. There, I used a damp paper towel to blot my shiny face and unsmudge the mascara that had run half way down my cheeks a la Ozzie Osborne. A dab of red lipstick to each cheek and a swipe across my lips brought me back to life. A clip in the hair for the remainder of the ride might set the hair straight. It was worth a try. A girl can dream.

I was ready for prime time. At least at a rest stop on the Parkway.

But who was I kidding?

I was no more in date form than I was the Queen of England.