Sorry to leave you hanging, Pranksters, but I knew a 2500 word story would make half of you fall asleep and the other half of you throwing shit at your computer in horror. How! Can! A! Blog! Be! So! Long!

Part I

We arrived at our destination, which had both wrought iron bars on the windows and the door – apparently one is not suitable – and had a five minute debate over who had to knock. In the end, we insisted The Guy On The Couch was the unlucky one. We made him knock – hey, we’re small white chicks; if someone opened up the door high on Special K, I’d rather not be the one directly in his or her punching radius.

Lo and behold, it was, in fact, the right address so we were greeted by my photog, Josh Hawkins, who looked tan and fit, which made ME want to take some Special K and beat him ugly. He lives in Vegas, lucky asshole.

Inside the place was like nothing I’d expected. Where I’d expected to see a couple homeless guys camping out and sleeping off their 40’s from the night before, possibly a couple of hookers looking for blow, I found it was a nice, roomy studio. It even had a working bathroom and fresh paint on the walls. (sidebar: you know you’re on the wrong side of the tracks when you’re happy the place has a bathroom) I was thrilled. I hadn’t yet changed from my Happy Pants into my outfit, and while I’d change in front of all three of them, I’d rather, um, pretend to be modest.

(three vaginal births later, I’m just as apt to take off my pants and “assume the position” as I am to shake your hand. I can possibly do both AT THE SAME TIME, but that is neither here nor there)

I’d caught Josh as he finished up a photo shoot with an old friend of mine, Janet, who once had a blog, but like most of the sane world, disbanded it many years ago. This gave Dawn, The Guy on my Couch and I some time to sit on what turned out to be the world’s most uncomfortable sofa where we chattered on about the Band Back Together 2013 calendar, which we were actually risking life and limb for.

I was nervous as hell.

Every time I panicked a little, I talked myself down: “the stylist would be here soon. The stylist would be here soon.” I hadn’t looked as bad as I did since, oh, the last time I went to Chuck-E-Cheese (read: the day before).

A refresher course on what I happened to look like walking into the place.

Yeah. That. See? Eye Slugs (or some weird thingy you put on your eyes if your eyes are puffy and/or have circles underneath them. I got them as swag one year and they totally burned my eyes (talk about swag promotional materials backfiring)

But I sat there on the couch, pretending to “work” (which involved a lot of Tweeting) as I waited for the stylist. An hour past the time she was supposed to show, Josh finally said, “Um, I can’t get a hold of her. I am not happy.” Then he went on about some other stuff as my brain melted out of my nose.

fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

I hadn’t brought any makeup. My hair was still damp from the shower. I wasn’t even wearing real pants.

Josh pointed me at a room he called the, “You Look Fine, Honey” room. Dawn and I made a beeline for it – it had a mirror, some awful props and, BINGO! A button of makeup. I said a quick prayer to the gods of theatre that Dawn had worked on stage in college as she went to work on my face.

Ten minutes later, I slithered into what is easily the ugliest item of clothing I own, threw on some fishnets, and said, “Oh FUCK. What am I gonna do with my HAIR?”

Oh yes, Pranksters, it even comes with the beret. Talk about winning! P.S. That is not me. P.P.S. Anyone want the outfit?

My hair hates to be forced to curl. My hair is a “I don’t need no stinkin’ curling iron telling ME what to do” independent kinda hair. My hair hates the color pink, any given Sunday, life, liberty and the pursuit of happyness. THIS was why I needed the ever-loving stylist to show up and save the day.

She didn’t.

So while Dawn got to work fixing the hair on The Guy on the Couch, I was left to my own devices. I found a studded masquerade mask, a bottle of red liquid that claimed to take makeup off, and some bizarre three pronged hair curler.

After I decided that it was not, in fact, a dildo, I plugged it in and began to work on my hair.

Rather than actually making me appear both chic, stylist and ready for the camera, I looked like a bastardized version of Beyonce. Or Diana Ross.

Frankly, I preferred the Eye Slug look.

Especially since it meant that there was no way I could leave without being mistaken for a particularly bad hooker. And shit, I didn’t want other hookers assuming I was there to take their bizness away.

The only comfort in all of this is knowing that I have a graphic designer on hand to fix whatever I did wrong (read: all of it)

Thank the Good Lord of Butter.