When I go to the beauty parlor, I always use the emergency entrance. Sometimes I just go for an estimate.

Phyllis Diller (1917–2012) built her comic persona around self-deprecating jokes about her looks, domestic life, and the pressures placed on women to appear “presentable.” This line fits her long-running nightclub and television act from the early 1960s onward, when she became a breakout star of American stand-up and variety TV. Diller frequently mined the beauty salon—an emblem of mid‑century femininity and consumer grooming culture—as a setting for exaggeration and one-liners. The “emergency entrance” gag plays on the idea that her appearance is so alarming it requires special handling, a hallmark of her deliberately outrageous, caricatured stage identity.

The joke hinges on comic hyperbole and a double meaning of “estimate.” By claiming she uses an “emergency entrance” at the beauty parlor, Diller pretends her looks constitute a crisis, turning a routine act of self-care into an urgent medical-style event. The follow-up—sometimes she goes “just for an estimate”—treats beautification like a costly repair job, as if her face were damaged property needing a contractor’s quote. Beyond the punchline, the humor satirizes beauty standards and the commercial industry built around them, while also showcasing Diller’s signature strategy: disarming audiences through exaggerated self-mockery that exposes the absurdity of judging women by appearance.