Facebook, you think you are so smart.
There, another pop up ad, even though I thought I had the settings to “off.”
I have to admit I ignored it for a long while, and then one day I actually looked at it, without clicking on the link.
I had to laugh. Out loud. There it was, an ad for something so revolutionary, so innovative, a cutting-edge beauty treatment you thought I needed… eyebrow tattooing. That is, a tattoo of eyebrows where eyebrows belong.
HA! I’ve won this one. The lack of any photo or selfie attached to my account may make me seem like a stalker but I’ve fooled you, Facebook. I’m usually careful to erase my history and remove any cookies after being on your site, but sometimes I forget and you collect your golden bits and bytes for your big data profile—a profile from which you make much money, on the searches and clicks of many unsuspecting users. The younger generation may not care, or expect this, but I am most assuredly no longer younger.
Back to the off-target ad you mistakenly post. I’m trying to imagine who would permanently tattoo eyebrows on their face, outside of someone afflicted with alopecia, or a Cardassian, of Star Trek. “Cardassians are a humanoid race, with light grey skin. Their faces have small ridges on their sides, which converge to a characteristic crest shape on their foreheads, with female Cardassians sporting a blue or blue-green coloration to their crest…” Now those are some eyebrows.
My eyebrows need no tattooing… au contraire: I am blessed/cursed with the famed Dimitroff “unibrow.” The unibrow, for those unfamiliar, is a set of overgrown eyebrows that grow across the middle of the bridge of one’s nose, grasp hold of each other, intertwined like a thicket of bramble bushes. Like a chrysalis, the brow ridges a stem.
We like to place blame with the 2%-4% Middle Eastern DNA on my auntie’s test revealed by Ancenstry.com. Most likely Turkish DNA, as the Ottoman Turks invaded and occupied both Macedonia and Bulgaria for about 800 years or so. I’m surprised it isn’t higher.
The thickets posing as my eyebrows are so that the clerk at the DMV took at least a dozen pics for my driver’s license, saying, “Your eyebrows are so dense, they are shadowing your eyes. The camera shows your eyes like black holes!” Hmmm, great… like alien eyes?
So, no thank you, Facebook. I do not need a faux eyebrow permanently inked above my peepers. ❏
Linda J. Dimitroff lives in Pittsburgh, Pa, and views the world through funhouse mirror eyeglasses.
Photo by Jamie Fenn
8 Responses
I love this piece! Hooray Linda!
Thanks, Maddie!
Ms. Dimitroff’s humor reaches a kind honesty, allowing the reader to start looking for something equally unnerving and special about themselves. Only very special writing can do this.l
Thank you, Professor Shapiro, for reading this and your comments.
This was a rather “cute” read. Your humor without regard to self deprecation was refreshing.
There is, however, an edit you might consider. For example, “…like to place blame with the 2%-4% Middle Eastern DNA on my auntie’s test revealed by Ancenstry.com.” would read better as, “…like to place blame on my 2%-4% Middle Eastern DNA, revealed by my auntie’s test on Ancestry.com.”
Overall, I think this would be a great “flash” read. Loved it.
Thank you for reading and your comments.
Ironic note: I posted the link to this page on Facebook!
ha!