Tough boys wear eye shadow

The tough exterior of a hard working tradesman hides a little known fact than many choose never to admit to anyone little alone themselves. Now most of us are in acquaintance to a typical tradesperson, hard working, dirty, strong, completely capable in many a field, independent and typically very manly. But it is a little known fact that these stereotypical men are very adept at the art of make-up. It is not necessarily what you my be thinking, grown men standing around the workplace comparing the latest collection from Jeffery Starr, or the newest lip glosses bought out by the it girl of the moment. No, no, there is more to this than meets the eye.

Now take our good friend Gary, (not his real name for manly reasons). A great young man who is extremely hard working and fits nicely into the tradesman category. He comes from a long line of hardworking country bred men who would rather shovel cow manure than put on a suit and tie and network with other clone like business types. He works hard for a dollar and has a healthy obsession with 4 wheel drives (utes/trucks).

This incident takes place over a number of days to where we are today. On this day, Gary was at a jobsite in our small country town. To most, this was a typical day apart from the recent rain that had intermittently interrupted the normal flow of the day. A godsend to the struggling farmers, a nuisance to the truck drivers delivering construction items on now mud encumbered roads.

Taking into account the now boggy conditions that Gary had to take into consideration, the inevitable occurred. Upon retrieval of construction material from the back of the flat bed truck, a misplaced step found Gary arse deep in mud and a partially constructed kitchen cabinet within millimeters of embedding itself into his left eye. Although to some this may seem quite terrifying, Gary picked himself up, scanned the area to see if anyone had seen this little calamity, checked to see if he still had an eye, and carried on with his job.

Although Gary wasn't readily going to admit to this little mishap, the evidence reared up to expose his plight gradually throughout the day. The once brown eyed sawdust covered sweaty man now had what seemed like a test swatch of eyeshadows in deep blues and purples covering his left eyelid perfectly. Knowing that his co-workers would recognise the continual changes in the colour of his eyelid, Gary attempted to conceal his injury by placing his well worn cowboy hat on whilst working indoors at a slightly irregular angle, thus actually drawing more attention to himself rather than deflecting it.

It was somewhat expected that Gary would receive friendly taunts from his co-workers once questioned. There was little concern for his eye welfare where as the focus remained on his muddy behind and his new eye accessory. Being the tough country cowboy tradesperson he is, Gary laughed off his now visually obvious eye bruising and dried up muddy rear end and finished off the working week a little sore and sorry for himself and a little concerned as to how he was going to camouflage his left eye from the gossip queens of the town.

Gary is a regular visitor to my home as he is good friends with my similarly aged children. My eldest daughter is quite the make-up collector, trying her best to keep up with current trends and experimenting with colours and styles quite regularly. So, naturally, she was his first port of call to enquire as to how to hide his injured eye, as they had all planned to hit the town the following night. Upon telling us of his little adventure that day, my first reaction was to ask if he was ok. I think this would be a typical mothers reaction to a near miss where an eyeball could have gone missing while at work. But NO, my children thought that this little story was hilarious for one, because he landed in the mud on his bottom and secondly, he was asking about make up to hide his purple and blue eye.

Saturday arrives and Gary is hunting for a remedy to his eye misery. It was quite obvious now the discolouration was at its peak and with the impending night out with friends and prying eyes of the town gossips his desperation was beginning to stress him out. Unbeknown to us, he was in hot pursuit of a young lady he wished to impress and was certain his bruised eye was going to be a hinderance in gaining the affections of this young lady. Applications of concealer, foundations beauty blenders contours, make-up wipes, the quiet whimpering's of a desperate man and the muffled giggles of a house full of girls filled the air. Can the required result be achieved for a man convinced his bruised eye will be the defining cause of whether or not he gains the affections of the lady of his dreams.

Now, I'm of a practical nature and I tend to see the positive in most situations. To lighten up his mood, I suggested that Gary could wear similar colours on his other eye so that it doesn't stand out as much and blend them in so it looks natural and he would feel less self-conscious. Well, that made all the girls giddy with excitement at the prospect of giving this poor man a make-over in what he would call futile circumstances. After a few choice words Gary chose to take a break from the plethera of giggling self proclaimed make-up experts to have a beer and I'm sure a mini breakdown.

It is usual to have a busy night at home with people coming and going, getting ready for a fun night on the town with friends, music playing and a few drinks had and lots of laughter and chit chat to be heard. It was easy to to loose track of one or two people during the early part of the night before everyone head out. This was the case with our young friend Gary. Without realising it, he had locked himself away in my daughters room. Not content to give up on himself, he had managed to heed my advice and had successfully applied a great number of appropriately coloured eyeshadows to his uninjured eye. As to not draw any attention to himself, he said nothing, put his head down and took off when everyone was leaving for their night out on the town.

Although I am not privy to the minor details of the night, the numerous snapchat pics that were sent and shared on various social media platforms displayed quite clearly Gary's effective use of my daughters numerous eye shadow pallets and the sheer amount of people that were unaware of his undiscovered talents.

In a quiet moment after the weekends adventures, I was able to have a little chat to our dear friend Gary. We had a little giggle about how many people didn't realise that he had used make-up to make his eye bruising a little less noticeable with the added advantage that the establishment was dimly lit and numerous inebriated clientele, he has got away with the taboo topic of men wearing make-up. Gary described it in such a way that only a typical manly man could. "It's just like mixing up paint when you want to spray paint your car, you have to mix a pile of colours together to get what you want". I couldn't have put it any better. As for whether he got the girl! That's for another story.