Faux Glow.

The Pet Set was honored by the International Greeting Card Association with a special award last night. As I got ready to go to the ceremony, I thought — gosh I wish I had a tan — so I applied Jergens’ new Natural Glow lotion as a desperate effort to improve the look of my winter, sallow skin. This product produces a very delicate “tan” after consecutive use.

The aforementioned award particularly recognizes exellence in design and composition — which means that many, many details had to be considered as I developed the cards. For some reason using the Jergens product made me recall a manager I used to work for, we’ll refer to her as Babs for this post.

Babs liked to use self-tanning cream; how do I know? Once in a meeting, she raised her hand to make a point and her palms were that icky tell-tale orange that happens when you don’t wash your hands fully after application. Then I looked at her legs and noticed the streaks and the sudden contrast in color between her legs and her ankles.

I know this post sounds like a scene from Tina Fey’s “Mean Girls”…but the whole recollection made me think about how much energy we put into the creation of our faux selves…how much we cover up our authentic selves.

I had to wonder what else was she hiding? And by the way, how disciplined of a manager could she have been, if she didn’t take care to hide what she was trying to hide?

The devil is in the details, as the saying goes…or he’s hiding in the lotion.