Out and About with Mrs Pickwick · Unbounded Domesticity

Mrs Pickwick Prepares for a New Kind of Battle

Actual footage of the last time Mrs Pickwick purchased cosmetics

Mrs. Pickwick slipped into the mall, feeling a bit like a bandit, but also delightfully incognito, and strangely fearless behind her mask. She was just another anonymous customer in a blue gingham dress and Edwardian hairstyle popping into the local beauty supply store. No one ever need know who exactly Took Up Space and Asked Silly Questions. She was on a… complicated mission. Emerging from the fog of early 2020 brought on several epiphanies: she and Fr P could go on a date that meant getting in a car and driving out of the quarter mile radius that had bounded their lives for such an odd era, the Baby was rapidly approaching 3 and it was quite possible that unheard of luxuries like dangly earrings and beauty products that did not also have “shampoo” on the label could venture to show themselves in the Pickwickian abode without being immediately deemed choking or licking hazards. And finally, Small was quickly becoming Tall. And Lovely. And somewhat Warlike. And Mrs P was going to have to own some eyeshadow if she had any intention of being annoyed by someone else borrowing it.

At the door of the store, Mrs P was greeted by an armed security beauty expert. Things have clearly changed since 2001 when just anyone could waltz in and buy lipgloss. Slightly nervous, but still bolstered by the knowledge that the well-coiffed living testimony of forthcoming glamour had no idea by whom she was confronted, Mrs P decided to be… honest.

“Hello, hello! Welcome, lovely day, I just have to let you know that all samples are off limits for touching right now and you need to leave your mask on at all times and….”

“I have no idea what I am doing.”

Mutual Pause.

“Oh, well, um. Just leave your mask on like it is…”

“No, I mean, I was sent here by a friend who recommended a specific brand of some kind of powdered thing but I don’t even know what color I am supposed to get, or where it is in there, and I haven’t really been in many stores at all since March and I certainly haven’t been in this kind of store ever though I have walked past the mascara aisle at the grocery store several times during the mid-twenty-teens and sort of thought about it but since the children haven’t been able to resist eating even just a basic chapstick I’ve sort of not bothered trying to purchase anything since the early aughts and that is sort of embarrassing though to be perfectly honest I’m rather relishing being able to say ‘the early aughts’ because I do think that is beginning to sound kind of vintage already and I look forward to talking about the era with the young folks someday…Anyway, my oldest is 12 now and I just really would like to have a few things about to argue over, I mean, bond about…”

The Beauty Security Expert nodded politely, as though perhaps she has had a lot of conversations lately with people who have forgotten how conversation works. She also radioed headquarters and casually mentioned that she was sending in a special case and if they could get backup to aisle four, as quickly as possible, that would be just great. And so, after dutifully promising to look with her eyes only, not her hands, Mrs Pickwick entered the paradise of beauty products and wondered if she even had enough face to use half of the proffered goods.

Staying on task has always been one of Mrs P’s strong points, so naturally she went straight to aisle four and remembered where she was and why she came in and did not at all visibly jump and toss her wallet into a display case of blush when a Beauty Sales Expert asked if she was, by any chance, the one who, ahem, didn’t really know…

“…what I am doing. Yes, sorry. Yes, that’s me. Oh, sorry, yes, I forgot. I won’t touch anything now, I’ll just get my wallet there. No, really, I startle easily. Very jumpy, just ask any of the children, quite a running joke at our house.”

Mrs Pickwick put the young Beauty Expert Whippersnapper through her paces and they both came through admirably. After establishing which magical little round box of powdered gold—the only explanation Mrs P can think of to explain the price—was just the right shade of “Fairly Medium,” Mrs Pickwick confessed she wasn’t really sure how to get the magical powder from the box to her face and so they went in search of brushes. On the way, Mrs Pickwick also confessed that she had lips. Under her mask, of course, but they were there. Mrs P was hoping there would be something that would give the very barest idea of lipstick, just a hint of actual real lip color, honestly just exactly like her lips, but in a tube and also that cost money. Tinted chapstick? Could one pay for the experience of buying and applying makeup without the consequence of wearing it? Yes, it turns out that one can.

Clutching her Fairly Expensive treasures, and just a tad disappointed that she couldn’t even manage to be Decisively Medium, Mrs Pickwick ran the gauntlet of the socially distanced checkout and waved goodbye to the Fairly Stylish Beauty Security Expert on her way out. Just another perfectly normal, fairly medium sort of customer girding herself for battle in blue gingham. Hold on to your hats, the Pickwickian ladies are now armed and dangerous.

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