What could be as dry as a bone? The grass in Brisbane? No, not at present. A reformed alcoholic? No, but maybe. My friend Val’s sense of humour? Yes, but no, that’s not what I was thinking of….

Actually, I had a bit of a problem this morning when I opened my new Revlon Eyeliner of the Violet Black variety (for a change) which I bought yesterday at the Discount Chemist in Beenleigh for the princely half-price sum of $13.95, which I had mistaken for the whole price yet to be halved, and which I wouldn’t normally dream of paying… but I was at the checkout and didn’t feel like making a fuss, and, after all, it was Aussie dollars not English pounds (the hardest to take off). So, after struggling for five minutes working out how to take off the clear cellophane wrapping, at last I found the little gold tag and zipped the Violet Black Eyeliner free; I pulled off the clear plastic lid and scrutinised the head of the eyeliner stick – it was a piece of firm sponge shaped like a bullet – and I soon had the eyeliner stick sweeping across my upper eyelids.

“Violet Black isn’t very dark,” I said to myself, then I put my glasses on and inspected more closely in the mirror. Not a sign of the Violet Black.

“I wonder if I need to wet it?” I asked myself, spitting on it and spinning the dark blue sheath at the other end, in the hope that the blue eye make-up would work its way to the sponge end. Still nothing.

“It’s as dry as a bone,” I thought to myself.

Some hours later, as I was returning from my brother Bill’s house, I made a short detour…

“This half-price Revlon Eyeliner of yours, which I bought yesterday (showing the receipt), is as dry as a bone!” I said to the middle-aged lady behind the counter.

“Ooh, it is dry, isn’t it? Did you try wetting it?” she agreed bemused.

I felt a bit guilty as the queue was growing and still we could not fathom the problem. Another, younger, member of the counter-staff was passing by at that very moment and my lady held the eyeliner stick out as you would hold a dry old bone.

The twenty-year-old eyed the eyeliner stick and smiled knowingly.

“This head is for smudging,” she said and paused long enough for the penny to drop.

“Ah, so it’s at the other end…”, (she nodded), “and the blue sheath that goes around is the cap?”

The girl laughed, the older woman laughed and all the ladies in the checkout queue guffawed; you could say there wasn’t a dry eye in the vicinity!