It takes lots more prep, products to put on happy face

I’ve become a Don Martin cartoon.

The late Martin was one of the artists who contributed regularly to MAD magazine. One could bust a proverbial gut just by looking at his characters, with their elongated faces, big noses, potbellied middles and big feet in floppy shoes.

One of my favorite strips of Martin’s was about this lady of “a certain age” getting up in the morning and getting ready to go out. She starts out looking a hot mess. The cartoon goes on to showcase and label the tens of products — wig, eyelashes, makeup, extreme foundation garments, outfit, shoes, jewelry — that the woman uses to make herself presentable. Finally, after a long and grueling ritual, she steps out.

I’m now old enough to see that her efforts were not just a figment of Martin’s imagination.

When you’re a prom-going girl, you’re excited about your dress, hair, shoes, purse and makeup, especially if you have a parent subsidizing you. When you’re a prom-going boy, you simply rent a tuxedo, put it on, and go. When you’re an older man attending a formal event, the only variation to this scenario may involve pulling your very own tux out of your closet. You don’t even have to buy your wife a wrist corsage.

When you’re a woman middle-aged or older, you have to worry about such things as finding a dress that’s (1) not too young for you; (2) doesn’t look too, too matronly; (3) fits you correctly and (4) doesn’t cost a king’s ransom. You have to worry about the foundation garments to go under the dress. You have to find shoes that at least look better than the shoes in those catalogs that cater to “old people,” but which are wide and lowheeled enough not to be torture devices. Or, you squeeze your feet into kicks you had no business wearing after your 39th birthday. Then there’s the jewelry, your favorite pieces of which always seem to be broken, missing a fake stone or missing, period. The toiletries by which you must prepare for that special evening don’t just involve basic makeup; they involves body moisturizer, face moisturizer, night cream, concealer, revealer, brow powder and lip plumper. If you do your own remaining hair, you have to decide what coif is most flattering for it, then abuse it with hair gel, hair mousse, hair serum, hair tonic and several types of hairspray.

Things came to a head for me the week before last as I prepared for an uber-major formal event. I’d put my preparation efforts up against the work ethic of a kid trying to earn money for a first car.

The scenario:

■ Formal event approaches. Dress ordered online fails to show up.

■ Mad, last-minute scramble ensues. Stop at chain thrift store. Spot two nice gowns that are actually in the vicinity of my size. Hastily pluck cheapest one without trying on. Murphy’s law results.

■ Realize hair needs doing. Stay up obscenely late Friday night being own hairdresser. Updo comes together after about seven tries.

■ Return to thrift store Saturday morning and exchange non-fitting dress for ballgown with literally four layers of skirt. Hope nobody thinks I’m celebrating my quinceanera 40 years late.

■ Bigger dress needs about 90 minutes of steaming out wrinkles and a hand-sewn, temporary solution to an overly generous bodice that threatens to flop down and expose assets and liabilities.

■ Apply fake eyelashes, after several efforts. Scrub black lash glue marks off hands.

■ Jump in shower, hoping lashes won’t be steamed off.

■ Squeeze into torture-chamber unmentionables.

■ Yea! Finally reached the makeup-application point! Oh wait. Wearing open-toed shoes. Feet not ready for prime time. Rummage around for toenail-polish remover, new nail color, and shea butter. At least this involves sitting.

■ OK! Now it’s time for makeup application! Steady as she goes …

■ Big finale: Put on dress and shoes. Decide to rely only on cloth wrap despite unseasonably freezing October night weather.

■ Spend what I can of the next day recovering from exhaustion.

Of course (sigh) there’s the alternative to putting forth all this effort: going out looking the way the Don Martin comic-strip character looked when she woke up.

Ah well. I’m not yet old enough to care that little about what people think.