I should at least teach her how to apply it properly

I lay down for ten minutes. That was my first mistake.

When I hauled myself out of bed, not nearly refreshed, I was soon greeted by a very red face. No, it wasn’t that my two-year-old daughter was embarrassed, though she should have been. It wasn’t that she’d been hitting the wine bottle, not that I would have preferred that. It was that my five-year-old had gotten her hands on my expensive lipstick, the kind that, once you apply it, you better hope you did a good job because it’s not going to budge for hours.

Well, my daughter did not do a good job “making [her] little sister beautiful,” as she put it. It was hideous, like The Joker had applied his make-up on a roller coaster. The red lines stretched from ear to ear, forehead to chin, leaving little space in between. I was horror-stricken.

I tried washing it off, but it was fruitless. I wasn’t sure if my daughter’s face was red from the lipstick still, or from my constant rubbing. I had to finally leave it alone. I wasn’t able to get it all off until the next morning.

From now on, I’m just going to buy the cheap stuff.

-Becky, mother of 4