Psychological Eyebrow War

While putting on my makeup this morning I thought about an incident that happened when I had to live with neighbors in high school.

Our neighbors lived up the hill from us and my mom was friends with the wife, her name was Dottie.  In the house lived Dottie, her husband, her mother-in-law, and their awful dog.  I really cannot remember the name of the husband, or dog, I called the mother-in-law Mrs. B____ (I'll call her Mrs. B here.)

The dog was spoiled rotten.  He sat at chair during dinner and ate with us from a plate.  He was old, smelly, and ill-mannered.  Dottie treated him better than anyone in the house.  Enough said about the dog, except Mrs. B didn't like him.

To say Dottie and Mrs. B did not like each other would be a gross understatement.  They were at war with each other.  Dottie was very open in her deeds against Mrs. B.  Mrs. B tended to play a psychological war on Dottie.  

Mrs. B did all the house work and cooking for the family even though she was in eighties at the time.  One night at dinner Mrs B looked different.  I noticed it when she was serving the plates.  I wasn't quite sure what was different about her, but something was not quite right.  It was driving Dottie crazy.  She kept saying "What is wrong with you tonight."  I kept looking at her too, but they kept the house pretty dark and I just couldn't seem to get a good enough look to get it.  After a full dinner of Dottie asking Mrs. B why she looked the way she did, it became pretty apparent when we went into the kitchen.  Mrs. B's eyebrows were missing.  Evidently she decided to shave them off that day.  Dottie was livid.

The next night when we went to sit down for dinner, Mrs. B had drawn on only one eyebrow, not a unibrow, but one eyebrow over one eye and it was quite dark and swoopy.  She also added a very bright red circle to each cheek.  It was all I could do not to fall off my chair laughing (so would not have been allowed). Mrs. B looked like she belonged in a local production of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jame" playing Betty Davis' part.  I thought Dottie would stroke out. It was even harder to hold my laughter in when Mrs. B went behind Dottie's chair  while Dottie was going on and on about how Mrs. B looked, because Mrs. B started pantomiming that Dottie was crazy and making yapping motions with her hands.

The third night Mrs. B came to dinner with two very elaborately drawn eyebrows, pink cheeks, and bright red lipstick.  All she needed was some clown hair.  Dottie once again went ballistic.  I laughed because I knew Mrs. B was trying to make Dottie crazy every night. It seemed to be her entertainment for the day.

What did dear old son/husband do during all these shenanigans? Eat his dinner and go on like nothing ever happened. 

I learned some great stuff from Mrs. B.  I am keeping it in my arsenal in case I need it for my daughter-in-laws in about 30 years.