Like if baby diapers, hairspray and cotton candy had a threesome.

I smell them before I see them.

Then I roll my luggage right into their heavily-perfumed web.

Glitzy, glossed, bedazzled and bejazzled. These broads are a sensory potpurri. Dressed to the nines, if the nines were a sad rack of JC Penney prom dresses.

"What's the occasion?"

(Because the superlative sashes didn't give them away.)

"Honey. We've taken over," says SAPPHIRE STAR CONSULTANT.

"We're all here for Mary Kay," echoes MISS ENTHUSIASM.

"Mary Who?"

That's the woman in floral near the front of the pack. She has no sash. (Presumably her sales skills are crippled by her penchant for Lucite. Or maybe she's not employed by the pink mafia and genuinely as amused by the gaggle of semi-aggressive makeup mongers as I am.)

Thought bubbles grow above my head... Why the H is the elevator taking so long? And... if I'm still violently allergic to artificial fragrance... dear sweet baby Jesus, please someone have an EpiPen. 

"What are you here for?" asks QUEEN OF FACIALS from behind a tube of lipstick, puckered and pursed.

"Big 12 Media Days."

Which have now ended, hence swapping pumps and blazer for sneakers and a limp pony. (I almost feel the need to reason.)

"Now, what exactly is... the Big 12, is it?"

I explain that I work in television and spent two afternoons asking grown men questions about a game.

"No, the season hasn't yet started."
"Yes, the place was crawling with athletes."
"No, they're in COLLEGE. Yes, all of them." Perv.

"Do you like what you do?" says the silver-haired one.

Before anything audible can escape, I'm surrounded.

"Why don't you come with us?" purrs FACIALS. "Come as you are!"

She's eyeing my wrinkled t-shirt and chipped polish.

"Yes, sweetie. Yes."
"You'll wake up every morning LOVING what you do."
"L-O-V-E."

I'm overwhelmed by a chorus of surround-sound, syrupy-Texan and I'm waiting to be thrown over their sequined shoulders and dragged to a dark corner of the convention center.

If they could've done so sans legal implication, I do believe they would've. But their lusty sales pitch is squelched by the elevator ding.

I wait. They cram in.

"I'll hold for the next one, ladies."

"You sure?"

The doors inch closer.

"I'VE GOT A SAMPLE OF FINISHING SPRAY."

Three inches, two inches...

"RIGHT HERE IN MY PURSE."

Muffled as it slides shut, whisked away are the women of Mary Kay and their finishing spray.

I pageant-wave goodbye.