I think I know what happened over at Maybelline.

One employee was stirring her vat of lipstick, and one employee was stirring her vat of nail polish, and they got distracted by their conversation. The first employee was having trouble with her boyfriend, and the second employee was sympathizing, but it was bringing up lots of bad memories for her because she, too, had been through some rough things in her most recent relationship.

As a result of the distraction, the lipstick ended up in the nail polish packaging and vice versa. The factory forewoman made the decision to "just go with it!" Customer reviews were favorable. For the most part, consumers couldn't tell the difference. Most women like creamy nail polish and shiny lipstick anyway.

Take this piece of mothering advice: do NOT shop for cosmetics with four children in your cart. (Many more high-falutin' women than me would convert this into cosmetic advice: do NOT shop for makeup in stores with carts.) I was at Target (as I often am, let's face it) and I needed lipstick. I walked into one of the cosmetics aisles and became a bit overwhelmed by the ninety-three thousand lipstick options. Life was easier for me when my mom was a Mary Kay consultant and gave me everything free. Delivered to my door. IF you can select what type of lipstick you want - which might take up to forty minutes... you then need to select a color (colour, as they like to spell it on the makeup aisle --- even at Target). Take it from me, moms of four -- even moms of ONE -- don't have the time it takes to properly select lipstick. So I did what any desperate woman would do: I played eeny-meeny-miney-mo.

Once home, I was quite disconcerted to discover that I had chosen a lipstick with three parts. Normal lipstick would have two - the lipstick and the lid. Even lip BALM requires that much. So you wouldn't think three parts would be a big deal, but I couldn't figure this thing out. I had to read INSTRUCTIONS! With my LIPSTICK! If I had time to read makeup instructions, I wouldn't have had to rush into my purchase in the first place!

This little doozy has a (and I will now use Maybelline's terminology) 16-hour liquid color. Oh! Look at that! They spelled it "color". Maybelline is really backing off the pretense. There is a whopping .077 fluid ounce of this stuff. Sure to last me clear into the middle of next week. But wait! The color is only step one. And, yes, there is a shiny silver "1" emblazoned on the bottle for morons like me so I know what to apply first in my multi-step process. Step 2 is the conditioning balm. You have to apply the color, "wait for it to dry thoroughly" and then apply the balm. Got that?

I followed the steps. I applied. It dried. I balmed. And I'm here to tell you, those folks at Maybelline aren't messing around. That stuff STAYED. I had to virtually PEEL it off. It was kinda freakish, and that's what led me to believe that I had something more like nail polish on my lips. And it might take acetone to get it off more easily. So... if you're looking for a lipstick that doesn't gook up after a couple hours, won't smear all over your Starbucks cup, and takes some effort and concentration to apply --- this stuff is for you! Incidentally, it's called "Superstay." Of course it is.