Persuasion

Persuasion

Why am I so easily persuaded?

When I step outside my house, which I usually do only to get to and from work, I have the option of walking either in the direction of Kings Highway or Avenue U (the latter ruled by Asians, the former by Russians).

Avenue U
One day I’ve decided to give Avenue U a shot, having preferred the other alternative until now. While strolling along Avenue U, I came upon a fish pet store under the pseudonym of “Mini Aquarium”, where visitors are encouraged to “come in and observe the fish”. I haven’t really looked at fish in quite some time so I entered hoping to be blown away by some beautiful and rare species. What I found instead were about fifteen tanks, filled with regular goldfish and some bowls with Betta fish, all displaying signs of “do not pound on the tank as fish are sensitive”-forcing me to hide my bat which I brought with me for this exact purpose. I’m positive that had I come in with a large group of spectators, we’d have been left in peace “to observe”, but since I was the only visitor, the lady at the register felt obliged to start convincing me to purchase my very own Japanese fighting fish (Betta)-possibly propelled by intuition of my lack of human contact. I tried to tell her that I am a loner who hates to be bothered and do not want any responsibilities but she wouldn’t listen. “Oh fish-a goo’ fo’ you, tayka, tayka”. So I tooka.

Kings Highway

After purchasing my very own pet, I loaded the same bag, the nice lady at the “aquarium” gave me, with groceries and continued walking aimlessly with a feeling similar to the one fathers of unwanted pregnancies have. One day the Betta will have to thank my Medical Issues teacher who forced me to debate on the pro-life team. All of a sudden, a man on the street shoved an ad in my hand, taking me out of my reverie. I looked around and realized that I am now on Kings Highway (long time no see). I always throw out all such things into the nearest garbage (not bothering to see if enough distance was covered between the ad giver and the garbage can), but something prompted me to read this violently pink, neatly-folded piece of fate-changing material. The first words I saw were eyelash and eyebrow coloring. I ran back to the guy to point me in the right direction, and being the toothless gentleman that he was, he walked me there himself. A homely-looking woman practically shoved me into “the chair”, already mixing color before I even opened my mouth. She did my eyelashes first, reassuring me that even though it may “tingle” a bit it’s not harmful at all, nor will it cause blindness. I was supposed to wait fifteen minutes, but the horrific burning sensation forced me to jump out three minutes into the procedure, and blindly bang my body against everything until I found a sink. After I was done, the torturer sat me down and proceeded to compliment the tint of my lashes completely ignoring the fact that my eyes were now bloodshot red with a hint of purple. I had to suppress the desire to grab the nearby nail polish and pour it on her neatly coiffed hairdo. The torment, however, didn’t end there. The lady won me over by all the compliments aka nicely worded insults such as: your skin is silky smooth, if it wasn’t for all the blemishes, or, your hair is so nice, if you give me a chance to do it for you. (All I could think of was: my eyes were so green before you poured peroxide into them and turned me into a Werewolf). After I sat back down into “the chair” she said that the only thing that will make me more beautiful is if my eyebrows matched my eyelashes. I warned her that pale skin + black eyebrows is not a good look for me (or anybody) and this type of make up is usually used in movies where the character spends most of their time institutionalized. “Nonsense!”, she exclaimed, “how will you ever know unless you try?”, followed by the old but always effective, “Trust me, I’ve been doing this for twenty years” argument. I acquiesced, staring at her intensely with my new-colored eyes to instill fear, warning her to only keep the color on my brows for two minutes. Once she put the pitch-black concoction (which should’ve been brown) on my face, I saw a Japanese Geisha in the mirror staring back at me (which made sense since I now was the proud mother of a Japanese fish). In a panic, I rushed to the sink furiously scrubbing my face only to realize that the “semi-permanent” color was, in fact, permanent and it liked me so much that it refused to budge. I said “look lady, I now resemble Leonid Brezhnev who’s gone mad, are you happy?”, to which she calmly replied “No, you look great, please come again when the color wears off”.

“How will you ever know unless you try” will be forever engraved in my memory. For the record: every fool knows that even if you never try, you still have an inkling and it’s usually right. I knew that if I enter the mini aquarium I’d leave with a new responsibility, and I also knew that if I enter this particular salon I’d leave scaring all the people walking by me on the street.