Eyelashes

My significant other blinked at me with a wide grin.

"You're doing that again."

"Doing what?" she asked innocently.

"Why do you insist on caking on so much mascara that it makes me think you've been attacked by spiders or centipedes?"

"It gets a rise out of you, doesn't it?"

"But, once or twice a week for twenty years, honey. Surely the weight and discomfort aren't worth getting me to complain are they?"

"It's not that bad. I use hypo-allergenic makeup, and I'm used to it. I kind of feel naked without it. But, much though you're the most important person for me to get a rise out of, it isn't really for you."

"No?"

"Every day, I face men and women who judge women on their use of makeup."

"I know about how judging people by their clothes is a no-no, but I guess I'd never realized that people judge people by their makeup."

"Other than skirts too short and necklines too deep, what do people judge beauty by?"

"Uhm, I guess all that's left is the face."

"And what is to the face as the hemline is to the hips?"

I had to think about that a moment.

"Since we don't usually wear masks in modern society, I guess it's hairstyle and ... makeup."

"And do people prefer to work with beautiful women or ugly women?"

"Uhm, I plead the fifth."

"Getting the point?"

"You're doing this to get into people's faces."

"Exactly." And she blinked, long and slowly for me.

So I kissed her eyelids.

"Hey. Don't mess up my mascara."