Oil of Olay claims to have a product line that will reduce the 7 signs of aging.  Seven…in my dreams.  I saw thirty in the shower this morning and my face wasn’t even in the count!  I wish I only had seven areas of concern…and I do, on my left eyelid.  Who are these people?  More importantly, what alien life form are they researching?  I mean sure I’ve got their seven, but please…their seven aren’t even major. Fine lines have been a given ever since I decided I looked better tan, and that was in the early 70’s, and free radicals make me think of Timothy Leary.  He would probably give you some hella good weed to make you forget your aging difficulties.  Dry skin is a recent gift, but I can’t use something as puny as regular body lotion for it.  Oh hell no!  I use axel grease and lots of it!  Age spots…hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!  I have so many age spots that they have started piling up on one another in little age spot kingdoms with cloud cover from age spot clouds, but it never rains because (as you’ll recall) my skin is the Sahara.  Uneven skin texture brings me to the mole people who reside on the surface of my tundra surrounded by empty pools of large pores with gently slopping shores of sagging skin.  So that’s my left hand…

I remember once when I was about 12 or 13 years old, I walked in on my great-grandmother getting dressed one morning.  Great-grandma always wore a long sleeved blouse, a long skirt, stockings, an apron, and underneath all of this clothing she wore a full length sleeveless chemise.  My first shock was seeing my great-grandmother’s naked body as I walked in on her.  It has been 36 years (give or take) and I haven’t forgotten  the shriveled, dried apple, texture of her skin, or the complete absence of body hair…but the biggest, and I mean ginormous beyond comparison, thing that shocked me was how long her boobs were!  The chemise was a one piece garment that went on over her head (Obviously not soon enough).  Next came the skirt, which was floor length and zipped and fastened at the waist.  Now, hold on to your panties, Nancy, because it’s about to get ugly…great-grandma reached down through the neckline of the chemise and dropped her boobs over the waist of her skirt…DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I JUST TOLD YOU? She performed a full-frontal boob drop right in front of my eyes.  I was mortified.  I went home home and hugged my little boob-buds to my chest and begged them never to get long, and for the first 25 years or so it looked like they had heard and were going to behave.  One morning I was in the shower, I was probably 30 or so at this point and not disgusting like now, but past my prime…when my daughter came in to use the potty.  Sweet little cherub is watching me dry off and get dressed, then she blurts out “when I get big will I have long boobies too?” I sighed, and looked at this final child who had sucked the life out of me and said “if there is a God in heaven yours will be even longer.”

These are things I will tell to you my blog buddies.  I will never reveal them to my husband because he doesn’t need to see them.  It was actually in our vows…”to love and to honor, in obesity and grossitude, through old age and diapers, till death do us part.”  So I only have to worry about him killing me.  I was much thinner and less wrinkled when we met and fell in love.  He was barely out of high school.   It is possible that we have not improved with age.  I don’t point out that he is no longer the svelte youth I fell in love with, and he no longer threatens to turn me in for statutory rape, so we have it all worked out.

Everyone has a different way of looking at the aging process, but I remember being really sad once and my Dad told me a charming little story which I wll now pass on to you:

Once upon a time there was a robin’s nest with three eggs.  The mama robin sat on the eggs until time for her babies to hatch and they did.  Then she told her babies that she would keep them warm until she had to search for worms, and while she searched for worms they must stay quiet or the cat would eat them.  One day while she was hunting one of the hungry babies started squawking and the cat came, but before he could eat the loud baby the mama robin came back to fight.  She led the cat away from the nest, but was killed. As time went on, one of the babies who had remained  quiet starved to death, and one of the quiet babies froze to death.  Now the remaining baby was cold and lonely and his life began ebbing away…and as he fell from the nest he landed in a steaming pile of bullshit.  The longer he stayed there the warmer he became and he began singing.  The cat heard the singing and came back and ate him.

The morals to the story are these: 1. It’s important to know when to keep your mouth shut.  2.  Finding yourself neck deep in bullshit isn’t always a bad thing.  3.  If your happy with things (even if they’re shitty) keep your mouth shut.

My Daddy was a wise man.