Such a strange title, is it not? This post is all the fault of Becky over at Iron Needles who is in the midst of Blogtoberfest. Her post the other day (which can be found here) included a discussion on Q-Tips and it made me think about something I had not thought about in years. When I read her post I immediately thought about my high school years and how my Father was always telling me I had cornered the market on Q-Tips. I can see him shaking his head in disbelief at the mascara-blackened Q-Tips discarded in one big messy pile on my vanity table. I was, in short, a Q-Tip slob.

The reason being, of course, was that I used them in my make-up repertoire. I am lucky to be blessed with long eyelashes. In high school I played that feature up to the hilt. Each morning I could be found seated at my vanity table in front of my lighted makeup mirror (who uses those things anymore?) layering on the mascara and painstakingly separating the lashes with a lash comb. In the process of using the lash comb I would plaster my mascaraed eyelashes against my eyelids to better separate them. And there lies the reason I used so many Q-Tips— had to get all that mascara off my eyelids! I must have used ten Q-Tips per day. Multiply that times 7 days a week and you have a lot of Q-Tips. Why I didn’t throw them out when I was done with them I can’t tell you. But I didn’t. They just accumulated.

I racked my brain thinking of old photos of me that might prove my point. (About the eyelashes, I mean, not the pile of used Q-Tips.) I finally remembered my senior photo that was taken for the yearbook. I took off for the basement with the goal of finding those old yearbooks. Our basement is a mess, have I ever mentioned that? What we didn’t completely unpack when we moved here three years ago has been rummaged through time and time again. I managed to find them in a box marked “Lynne’s childhood memories.” Here is the photo but it’s way too small to see any detail.

I thought some more. Hmm ... seems to me I had seen the bigger, color version of that photo somewhere not too long ago. My baby book maybe? Yes. There it was. Perfect. Bless you Mom for keeping all this stuff together.

Look at those eyelashes! No, they are not fake. I wouldn’t kid you about a thing like that. They look a bit ridiculous now, but hey, it was the 70’s. Need a closer look at all that goo? A lot of work (not to mention Q-Tips) went into that look. I am now wondering just how I got all that mascara off. Lots of Johnson’s Baby Oil I’m guessing ...

Becky I hope you are satisfied. Look what you made me do! I would never have thought about it if not for your post. But it brought back some memories of high school days and I had a good laugh reading inscriptions in my yearbook. Do today’s kids still sign yearbooks as if they are autograph books? All those people saying “don’t forget so-and-so” and of course now I can’t remember who so-and-so is anymore. One inscription got me laughing. At least my eyelashes had made an impression on “Dave” enough for him to give me the alias of “Lashes.”

I had to look him up. I don’t remember him very well except that he was really really tall. And nice. I think he played golf on the school team. He was also a year ahead of me. Here he is.

Nice sideburns, Dave! So, David Morrison, where are you now?

I still have long eyelashes but I only wear a modest amount of mascara on them these days. And, I still use Q-Tips to tidy up stray mascara. Old habits die hard I guess.