You hear it all the time. Men saying that women take too long to get ready. As a woman, I have heard it around one billion times from my husband. Followed by “I don’t understand what you have to do that takes so long!”. Well guys,prepare to take a look into the life of a woman getting ready to go out.

The Shower

Undress. Realize that you forgot your hair clip. Put on towel and go find it. Go back into bathroom and drop towel. Decide that you’re thirsty. Put on towel and and go grab a drink. Go back to bathroom and drop towel. Find shaving cream, razor, and face wash. Put them inside the shower. Turn on water. Have child run in needing to pee. Turn off water. Put towel back on and leave the bathroom. When child is done, return to bathroom. Drop towel and turn on water. Get in. Start covering yourself with soap. Realize that the dog is trying to stick her nose into the shower, getting water everywhere. Get out of the shower. Shoo dog out of the bathroom and shut door. Get back into the shower. Rinse off soap and shampoo your hair. Rinse shampoo and start conditioning hair. Get back out of the shower because child needs to pee since he didn’t actually pee the last time he came in. Rinse conditioner. Wash face. Get face wash in your eyes and stumble around in pain. Grab razor and start to shave. Cut yourself seven times. Get out of the shower because the dog has pushed the door open and is back in the bathroom. Get dog back out and rinse off blood. Turn off water. Spend fifteen minutes mopping up all the water that the dog let out of the shower while brushing your teeth. Rip up seven tiny pieces of toilet paper to put on your shaving battle wounds. Detangle hair. Put on lotion. Walk around with your legs on fire because the lotion has gotten into your shaving nicks.

Hair

Decide that you are going to put effort into your hair today. Grab styling products, blow dryer and curling iron. Start putting hair products in your hair. Once hands are full of product and are sticky, get asked to make your child a sandwich. Go wash hands and prepare sandwich. Come back and put more product in your hands. Drop half onto the floor. Make due with what you have and rub into hair. Grab blowdryer. Start blowdrying and have dog come in barking because it’s scared of the noise. Wrangle dog out of the room and shut the door. Finish blowdrying. Notice that your hair looks flat because you didn’t add enough product. Grab curling iron and plug it in. Section hair so that you can curl it more easily. Have dog bust through door chasing cat, unplugging the curling iron. Kick dog and cat out, plug curling iron back in and wait for it to heat back up. Start curling. An hour of curling and redoing curls later, you realize your hair is bullshit at holding a curl. Spray. Try getting height at the top of your head by back combing. Get comb stuck because you can’t back comb. Pin the part you just fucked up back. Notice that all of your curls have fallen out. Throw hair back into ponytail.

Makeup

Tell yourself that you’re going to put more effort into your makeup to balance out your fucked up hair. Put face lotion on. Put foundation on. Spend fifteen minutes deciding on if you want a smokey, nude or dewy eye. Choose smokey. Grab dark eyeshadow and start applying it to your eyelid. Realize you didn’t blow on your brush so a bunch of dark powder has fallen under your eye. Try to rub off dark powder from under eye. Look like you have a black eye. Try to add cover up under eye. Have it mix with the loose eyeshadow and turn grey. Wipe off and re apply foundation. Put on eyeshadow while remembering to blow off excess powder this time. Have child wander in. Start applying eyeliner. Re apply eyeliner because your child bumped into you while you were doing it. Apply mascara. Apply blush. Reach for lipstick and look at child. Take child into bathroom to clean lipstick off of his face that he put on while you weren’t looking. Go back and apply lipstick and gloss.

Getting Dressed

Pick out five shirts and three pairs of pants. Try everything on more than once because you have to try each shirt with each pair of pants. Deem them all unwearable. Call friend crying. Go back to clothes. Try on thirty other articles of clothing. Decide on a shirt. Notice you have the wrong bra on for that shirt. Change bra. Realize you don’t want to wear that shirt. Find different shirt. Change bra again. Give up and grab any shirt off the floor. Yell to your husband that you’re hurrying. Grab pair of pants. Hate how they make your butt look. Grab different pair of pants. Flail wildly because you’re rushing and trying to put deodorant on at the same time, tripping everywhere. Notice pants have a stain that you never saw before. Looks like the same color of lipstick your son was wearing earlier. Change pants again. Lie and tell husband you’re almost done. Grab earrings, necklace and rings on your way downstairs. Realize you forgot your purse. Go back up and change purses because the one holding all of your stuff doesn’t match. Go back downstairs. Look for shoes. Find one of the shoes you want to wear. Go back upstairs. Find second shoe in child’s room. Go back downstairs. Have husband ask what took you so long and why do you look exhausted. Look in the mirror on your way out the door. Notice that your eyeliner is crooked your lipstick has come off and your shirt is wrinkled. Say fuck it and leave.

And that my friends, is a day in the life of a woman getting ready.

xo Stephanie