I don’t tend to buy make-up much. What I do have I’ve had for years or has been bought for me perhaps as a not so subtle hint that time marches on and leaves the most fresh-faced looking like they need a good sand-blasting

That’s why of the two mascaras I own, one is so dry it won’t open and the other so gummy it clumps lashes together and makes them look like a row of fat spiders have made camp along my eye-lids. Seeing as how the UK celebrates Mothering Sunday this week and I am as likely to get a pressie for that as I am to get one for Dia del Madre which is to say as likely as I am to win the next Euromillions while galloping bare back and naked through a field of tajinaste with a pineapple on my head, I decided to buy myself a new mascara for Mother’s Day.

There are three perfumerias in this little town. Three! You’d think they would be cost cutting like crazy to stay in business. I toyed with the idea of a super cheapo mascara from the Chinese todo shop but remembering horror stories tales of lead based Korean make-up from my youth (yes, I can remember that far back, thank you), I decided to invest in something a little more up market.

As I probably won’t splurge on another mascara until after the 2012 apocalypse, I figured I could push the boat out a little bit. I wandered into one of these scented emporiums of vanity and immediately all the salesgirls bristled with suspicion. Why do they always make me feel as if I am in there to pocket something?

Making my way to the shiny bay in the centre of the shop which sparkled and glittered with fancy wands and compacts, I looked, in vain for a price tag. Mascaras there were, by the dozen, but not one price in sight. God, I hate that, don’t you?

A powdered and perfumed sales assistant glued herself to my side and whinneyed through her nose when I asked why nothing had a price on it. The implication seemed to be that if you have to ask, you can’t afford it anyway. I asked for the prices of mascara and she babbled on about the ‘newest one’. There are lengthening mascaras, thickening mascaras, mascaras to make your lashes lustrous and ones to make them defined. Why? Why can’t they make one good mascara that does everything. Hello, Estee Lauder, there’s an idea for your next sales gimmick.

Anyway, my pan-sticked friend returned glowing to report that the mascara she was waving in her hand cost only €28. When I stopped laughing, she assured me she wasn’t actually joking. What’s more, obviously this pàrticular mascara was worth the steep price because it vibrated.

The world has gone barking mad, if you ask me.