I worked today. Ordinarily I'm off on weekends, but once a season
the Smithsonian Associates do a big theater outing for their membership,
taking them to see a show at Arena Stage, and I have to pitch in and
help with the post-show reception. It's a fairly wealthy, lah-di-dah,
lots-of-disposable-income type of crowd that shows up for these things.
Ruddy, country club-looking guys; elegantly coiffed, pampered-looking
women. Lots of manicured mitts and bejeweled claws reaching across the
counter to snag the booze. No one's wearing less than $1,500 worth of
clothing or three times that amount in jewelry.
So, I go on down to the theater and help set the Fichandler lobby
up for the soiree after the play. Dragging tables and chairs out,
setting up the buffet, coordinating with the caterers, laying out the
food, stocking the bar, etc.... The show ends, the crowd comes pouring
into the lobby and attacks the buffet like crazed jackals on a zebra
carcass. I'm tending bar, and pouring wine and mineral water and sodas
and beer, and keeping up with demand pretty well. Rich folks love free
drinks, I'm telling you...
There's a lull in the activity, and I turn away to pour myself a
drink. I hear a deep, rumbling voice say "Do you have Chardonnay?" and
as I turn around to answer, three things happen:
1.) I realize that the voice-- which sounds for all the world like
a wino retching through a kazoo-- is emanating from this tiny, shriveled
woman.
2.) I register that she is perhaps the ugliest, most frightening
looking human I have ever seen up close.
3.) The wave of stench hits me like a wet slap-- the acrid stink of
stale cigarette smoke. I mean, it doesn't just cling to her, it seems to
envelop her completely. She's almost...gummy with it. Maybe it's what's
holding all four and a half feet of her together... that and the Chanel
suit.
She has a face that looks like it was sewn from old
footballs--wrinkled, puckered, deeply grooved and hideously dark. Tanned
way beyond normal limits. And let me hasten to add that this was
definitely a Caucasian female. My first thought was something completely
incoherent, along the lines of "AAARRRGGH! BLAAAAHHH! EWWWWWWW!" and
then I recall thinking "She's been smoke cured, like a ham; she has...my
God-- it's....it's....beef jerky face!!" She had the appearance and
aroma of someone who's spent the last 25 years chain smoking inside a
telephone booth...
It's very difficult to convey exactly how frighteningly grotesque
this woman was. Her age could have been anywhere from 60 to 120-- it was
impossible to tell without carbon dating, or maybe sawing thru her and
counting the rings. I am being kind, here. Maybe at one time she was a
cute baby, or a pretty young girl. Time had not been gentle with her.
Time had actually used her as the butt of some horrid joke, frankly.
Smoking had contributed to the overall picture in at least a couple of
ways. You don't get that sort of voice without decades of pounding down
the butts, and your skin doesn't take on that awful, sickly-- whatever
the opposite of "luster" is-- without constant exposure to smoke.
Her hair did not move. It was not a wig; I could clearly see where
it was attached to her scalp. It was just....rigid. Completely
inflexible, despite the Washington humidity. An engineering marvel or a
triumph of chemistry, I'm not sure which. And she stank. Oh, God, did
she reek! It was like someone had animated a cigarette butt, slapped a
plastic wig on it, installed a mechanical voicebox and set it toddling
into the lobby to ask me for wine. "Uh... yes, ma'am; Chardonnay", I
replied, trying desperately not to show how horrified I was by her
appearance.
"Thanks. Where can I smoke?" was her next question. I directed her
to the balcony off the lobby which overhangs the parking lot, and she
ambled out there and spent the remainder of the afternoon chain smoking,
while perched like some wizened little sparrow on a chair by the
railing. She never ate anything, just drank and smoked. She came back
inside to refill her wine glass 4 times, and to treat the rest of us to
her 150 decibel, hacking, barking, phlegmy-rich cough, replete with
hawking and snorting and throat clearing....it sounded like an agitated
Rottweiler trying to cough up chunks of some mailman's ass...
Now, it's obvious not everyone ages gracefully. Nor is everyone
gifted with fabulous genes and a supermodel physiognomy. We're all
(hopefully) going to get old and wrinkly--but sweet Jesus! We don't have
to actively promote this sort of freakshow by continuing to smoke! If I
needed another reminder of what an unglamorous, stinking, appallingly
disgusting habit smoking is, I couldn't have asked for a more dramatic
one than manifested itself at work this afternoon. God bless you,
smelly, scary, mummified-looking lady; may you inspire others to refrain
from tobacco wherever you go next.
Hopelessly swiped from:
http://www.worldsoldestlivingboy.com...ky%20Face.html
Oh Yech!!! 
Linear Mode
