So, last week I returned to the Marquis de Sade School of Aesthetics, and this time, I was just plain lied to. Granted, it was more or less lies by error of omission. Not a boldface look you in the eyes and tell you “this won’t hurt a bit” dentist kind of lies, but…lies nonetheless. So, for those of you who don’t know, our daughter has gone into aesthetics. Apparently not quite cruel enough to be a dentist, but well beyond abattoir operator, she chose aesthetics as her venue for heaping revenge on the world for some real or imagined injustice. DAMN…there was no room in the yard for a pony. I explained that to her a million times.

Just so you understand the level of cruelty they are capable of inflicting, one lovely “treatment” involves ripping the hairs from live animals such as …FATHERS! I suspect that, in secret, they practice by skinning live kittens, although I have no proof of that.

Anyway…with the enticement of a facial, “I mean, dad…what could hurt about a facial? Really!” I trudged off to meet the marquis in training. As I lay on the facial table, the marquis in training (my daughter and one I lovingly refer to as Satan) began discussing my “treatment.”. “Forehead effleurage, eyes, cheek effleurage, chin, slap, slap…” WHOA!!! What did you just say? How the hell did slap, slap, get into a facial? “Oh, don’t be such a pussy! It isn’t SLAP, SLAP, it’s more like pat, pat.” But you didn’t say pat, pat…you said slap, slap. The good news is that my dentist says that I won’t need any more than three crowns to fix the damage.

So with the first part of the facial done, my daughter says, “Hold this,” and hands me a small lightning rod covered in wet tissue paper and says, “Whatever you do…don’t touch the metal.” WTF! Where is Doctor Frankenstein? I was reminded of Ghost Busters “Whatever you do…don’t cross the streams. It would be bad.” “What do you mean by “Bad”” “All life as we know it would cease.” So here I am with a metal rod protected by a piece of thin, wet tissue paper. YES, I KNOW WATER IS A CONDUCTOR as my daughter takes an electro probe and touches it to my face to complete the current. GAWD, I wish I could take back the Armadillo incident. “This helps open the pores,” yeah…and helps slam shut the sphincter!

Remember Satan? I mentioned her a while back. Lovely lady, I am sure. Likely away from the school, she is quite kind…NOT. But at the school, she is attracted to pain like a junky is to heroin, like an alcoholic to liquor. Any time there is a “treatment” involving some sort of excruciating pain…Satan is there with bells on. “Need help?” Now, in a facial, there is something called extraction, which involves an extractor. Think icepick with handles. So there is Satan digging holes in my face with the extractor (not an easy thing to do with cloven hooves) as she chats merrily.

“Oh, look…that one made your eye twitch.” Well, of course, it made my eye twitch! You touched the optic nerve. Hey…I have an itch on the inside back of my skull…want to scratch it? Ok…I apparently didn’t think that comment all the way through as she seemed to take it as a challenge. The doctors say that the complete paralysis on the left side of my body should clear up in a few weeks, and the drooling will stop in a couple of days. Now, this is really more just a note in passing. It’s sort of a lesson learned so you don’t go astray. When someone is holding an icepick to your face and casually mentions that she won’t be at school tomorrow as she has surgery scheduled. Don’t…I repeat…don’t say, “Having a heart put in?” It can go rather badly.

So as I lay on the bed drooling, my left side and eye twitching uncontrollably, but with a lovely glow to my skin,; the instructor came over to chat to my daughter. “So tell me what you learned about using the…” Wet, lightning rod thingy. And my daughter goes on to say what she learned. It was her test. She had not used the wet lightning rod thingy on humans before. I remember saying clearly and concisely Whaa dthe fucth. You mee thaa you neber yousth dthat bifoo! And I left