The Night I Kissed the World

On my recent trip to New York City, I found myself at a makeup store with my friend at Time Square, around 11:30 pm. It was PACKED. Wall to wall people. Everyone was painting their nails, having makeovers from the store staff, and sampling the products. 

I was gunning for a new lipstick. I picked up one to rub on the top of my hand to see how the color would look on my skin. Before I could do it, the store employee yanked it out of my hand, as if I was offending the whole idea of makeup stores. I mean, I know it's not ideal, rubbing something on my hand that other people have rubbed on their hands. But they had tissues to wipe it off. I would wash my hands. Alas, those concerns had nothing to do with her actions at all!

In fact, when I turned to see what she was doing with the lipstick, I noticed my friend smearing a shade directly on her mouth, from the tube. The sample tube! Argh! Yuck!

"NO! What are you doing? Why are you putting that on your mouth?"

"Well, she cleans it for you!"

I turned to the employee, who was spraying some sort of fluid on my shade choice, then wiping it down with a paper towel. Voila, like new. Except, that has still been up to someone's mouth. Time Square is the crossroads of the world. There is ebola spreading around out there. How many mouths from how many parts of the world have tested that very lipstick? Yet, for some reason- call it peer pressure, call it too many cocktails - I put the newly "cleaned" lipstick up to my mouth and gave it a go. 

It's hard for me to write the phrase. I shivered about it the rest of the night. So gross. 

"But I don't think anyone had even tried yours. It looked brand new before she sprayed it." I thanked my friend. That helped a little, even if I didn't 100% believe her.

I took the chance to sneak a look at the spray bottle when the employee went to help another customer. It said, "Do not apply directly to skin." Awesome, that was on my lips. 

The unsurprising coincidence is that a few days ago, my friend told me that she has a cold sore on her lip. Again, I'm not surprised. I'm waiting for my incubation period to pass before I will admit that I made it out of that makeup store unscathed.