Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Torture devices for the modern woman

True story. So once I was - fancy place name drop alert - in this train travelling across Austria, minding my own business. I looked out the window at the lush green pastures and the big fat cows, felt a strange peace come over me, and said to myself: no cows were harmed in the making of this blog post. So serene, so austere was the whole situation, that when I looked across the aisle and saw this woman pulling out a torture device from her purse, it took me a few minutes to get to the panicking and shitting bricks stage. (By the way, austere in Austria, get it? Khi khi)

The woman looked harmless enough, dressed in a skirt and a top and a jacket. And yet there she was, brandishing a diabolic device the size of a small alarm clock. It was dark and metallic, and looked like a cross between clippers and scissors of the garden variety (literally). Oh wait, also a cross between a comb and a particularly effective murder weapon. Yes, it was that dangerous an object - a cross between FOUR things.

I was desperately trying to translate the word 'Help' into German in my head, when suddenly, without warning, the woman took the device and turned it upon herself. She raised it up, and I wondered how she was going to stab herself with the blunt end, when she raised it up even further and took it to her face. Maybe, I thought, it is just a very primitive microphone or something and she's going to break into a song. But then, she raised it even further to her eye, and I was so stunned, even the translating in my head stopped.


Next, she poked the device right into her eye and started what looked like plucking her eyeballs out. I let out a silent scream and clutched my eyes in horror. But you know how it is with horror movies. You HAVE to take a peek, right? And so, I looked. The woman was now giving a good work over to her other eye, and I began furtively looking for blood and empty sockets. To my dismay, a few minutes later, the torture ritual was over and the woman looked unperturbed and exactly like she looked before.

WRONG, said my female travel companions. She looked WAY different, even if I couldn't see it. You see, now her eyelashes were curled.