Laugh Lines

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.” Well that’s all fine and dandy if your strings aren’t springing from all the wrong places and your tailpiece isn’t hanging so low that even the most desperate of musicians wouldn’t consider playing with you. Besides, that quote sounds like a guilty overcompensation to me anyway—he probably told his wife that she looked fat in her bustle. We all know how these things go. I’m not saying some women don’t age beautifully—some even grow more attractive with the years. Maybe other women’s fiddles are just as perky as the day they got their first faddle. But for me—I wasn’t a Stradivarius to begin with.

Age, how do I loathe thee? Let me count the frickin’ ways! First, I’m fatter. My thighs show dimples through anything less than three-ply, heavy-duty polyester with a double-width silk lining. I had surgery a couple of years ago and I had to wear support stockings, the kind that you might have seen your grammy wear underneath a floral housecoat, but I’ve gotta say, those little buggers look more attractive every day. Although, let it be noted that when I do choose to wear control-top pantyhose, it looks like I’m baking bread in there, and somebody put too much yeast in the batch.

Then there’s the gym. I find the showers and their postage stamp towel size to be a humiliating experience of coochi coochi peek-a-boo. Who the hell do they size these towels for anyway? It’s like Tommy the Towelmaker’s only female experience was with a bunch of pygmy adolescents who suffered from an eating disorder. I spend the short walk from shower to locker doing a spastic dance with my towel snapping this way and that. I suddenly realize that I vaguely resemble a matador in a desperate death match with a bull—only when I see myself in the mirror naked, I’m not sure which one I am. Ole!