Face Telling

We’re piled at the kitchen table, arms everywhere in a convoluted game of tabletop twister…reaching for the salsa, the Doritos, the ashtray, spinach dip, cheese please, my lighter, her chocolate martini, my beer….having one of those late night girl talks when Tami starts prattling on about her latest “good read”. …. A reference book about face reading, the art of profiling personalities based on facial characteristics. I’m a good four beers into this after-midnight conversation , thinking “are you kidding me?” You can’t profile someone on their Cyrano nose or endless eyebrows! Their double chin or goose neck! We’re born with these pups for crying out loud! And then, she said, “the real crazies are the ones that have white all the way around their eyes, you know … you can see the white on the top and the bottom….”

I bug-eyed her. Anyone can do that! She bug-eyed me back. Nope! White on the top. White on the bottom. But not on both. OMG! I’m sure my last boyfriend had a ring of white around his mud puddle eyes! Yes, I’m positive. I start rifling through the kitchen drawers, plowing through utility bills, old batteries, and garden seeds from 1998 hunting for the crumpled pictures…. “Where are they?” I check between the fridge and the pots and pans cabinet…..everything ends up lost in this little slot of nowhere land at some time or another…. I have to use the broom stick to fish it all out….. Two more utility bills, my driver’s license renewal form, 2004 W-2 , three bottle caps and a whole lotta cat hair…. No pictures of old whitey eyes! But I’m sure…..

If I could just find those pictures…

“I know. You’re father does that.” I blurt matter of factly to my eldest child. “ He has white all the way around his eyes!”
“No, No” she assures me.
“Then, your profiler is wrong” I mutter, stubbing out my cigarette and stuffing another blob of spinach dip down my throat.