For Tisha, who'd have an easier time putting lipstick on an actual pig

I had my first salaried position while I was still in college. I worked 4 p.m. to Midnight as a sports reporter and copy editor for The Olympian in Olympia, Washington.
This worked out great because I could take classes that final year. And so I had few friends and hung out a lot with my new co-workers. My friends were up at school and I was in Olympia...
My boss, Jeff Redd, was married at the time to a beautiful woman who was the mother of his two kids. And since they had also moved to Olympia for newspaper employment, she needed a social network and a job.
She chose Mary Kay. And so it was that I, sports chick, wearer of little or no makeup, girl who's idea of fun was kayaking, working out or running around in the woods and then drinking beers, ended up having a Mary Kay make over.
Jeff's wife needed a portfolio of before and after pictures. So, I went on over, freshly scrubbed, with clean hair, and let her curl and tease my hair, and apply layer after layer of foundation and color.
The funniest thing about the day, was when I was staring at a dark corner of the dining room so that she could apply mascara and I noticed a blinking red light. It turned out Jeff had decided to use his reporter's tape recorder to listen in on what we'd be saying about him. We laughed long and hard. He nearly died of shame. And then, I had to get to work.
I didn't scrub the make-up off. Even though by about dinner time I wanted to claw the skin off my face.
The next day it happened... the first of the hideous, infected pock marks on my face. It took two weeks, an antibiotic, and real concern on the part of our male coworkers to get over the allergic reaction to the make up.
Jeff was divorced, by the way, within the year.
He's long since remarried, I'm sure. I've left journalism and long ago moved to Texas from the West Coast.
And still, to this day, even living in the shadow of Mary Kay's world headquarters, I have never tried the make-up or cleansers again.