Editor’s Note: Welcome to my special-edition Leap Day ‘Editor’s Corner’ column! These bad boys only come out once every four years, and I am truly thankful that I get to write my first one! (Hopefully, I will stick long enough here to write a second one–see you in 2028!)

AT&T has recently announced that it will instate a $5 credit for all of its cellphone users affected by last Thursday’s nationwide shortage, which lasted pretty much the entire day. I’m not sure that $5 can adequately compensate for my time dealing with my mom’s incessant worrying that Thursday afternoon–but it certainly doesn’t hurt either.

The funny thing is, my mom didn’t even notice that AT& T was having issues with their service until my idiot brother casually mentioned it around lunch, causing her to lose her mind and frantically start searching for me at work. (She even called my co-worker--I still don’t know how she even got Jada’s number).

Luckily for the both of us, we regularly use Whatsapp to exchange texts and other messages– WhatsApp uses WiFi instead of data–so I was able to reach her while I was eating lunch at Panera Bread.

Thankfully, this whole incident happened on a lull day when I wasn’t doing any traveling or other important work business. I wasn’t really annoyed or anything; I thought the whole episode was kind of funny, except for the fact that I actually paid my cell phone bill the day before this whole fiasco happened, making me feel like AT& T robbed me blind. Whatever–they will get an earful from me when I upgrade my phone this weekend.

Some chicken soup for the Sephora kids

I am always astonished that people actually read my silly ol’ column, like my coworker Mark who once laughed at my little quip one week where I mentioned that I am bad at putting on eyeliner. Well, last Sunday I aimed to rectify that: I went to the new Sephora location at Twelve Oaks in Savannah to spend my hardearned money on Kulfi Beauty’s Kajal eyeliner. I chose Kulfi Beauty because (1) I already bought from them before; their South Asian-inspired looks always offer a great range of lipsticks for my skintone and (2) a group of preteens armed with smartphones and Kate Spade handbags were crowding the aisle I was in, so I felt the strong urge to get to the checkout line quickly to avoid second-hand embarrassment.

Now, listen–I know that the “Sephora teen” phenomena has already been written about in other publications (positively or negatively, depending on if the writer is a fashion blogger or a parent of teenage girls) but my experience on Sunday trying to dodge middle schoolers chatting about winged eyeliner made me recall my early years learning about makeup when I was growing up.

As the only daughter in my household, my first go-to for makeup tips was my mom.

I remember at the time feeling jealous of my friends who had older sisters to guide them, but I also remember feeling grateful that my mom wasn’t the kind of mother to harshly judge me for wanting to wear lip tints or fill in my eyebrows with pencil--provided that I wasn’t stealing any of these items from her dresser at odd hours without warning.

I also came of age during the Youtube makeup renaissance, where beauty vloggers like Bethany Mota, Ingrid Nilsen, and Zoella (Zoe Sugg) preached to me the importance of matte lips and contouring as I was getting ready for multiple school dances and ‘Sweet 16’ parties.

I’m not calling myself a bona fide makeup artist by any means, but I certainly have lived through my fair share of beauty trends over the past few years, so I feel particularly qualified to say any young teens shopping at Sephora for the first time: no matter what fresh new looks you try out from TikTok or Instagram, you’ll probably laugh at your embarrassing kid self in 10+ years. So don’t take yourself seriously, have fun, and for the love of Mastercard, you do not need to spend hundreds of dollars on eyeshadow. I’m sure your parents will thank you (and me, if they read page 4 of the Bryan County News!)

Andrea Gutierrez is the editor of the Bryan County News.