By Kathleen Norton
Copyright
© 2011 by Kathleen Norton
Smashwords Edition
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The writer
Kathleen Norton is an award-winning humor columnist for the Poughkeepsie N.Y. Journal.
Her mid-life coping tool is laughter. It’s more fun than banging her head against a wall and cheaper than a therapist.
Join Kathleen on her
journey at:
www.kathleennorton1.wordpress.com
Dedication
To Gerry, Kara, Tim, Luke, Samantha and Abigail, who provide love and material in equal parts, and to the memory of my brother Tommy.
I miss his wit most of all.
CONTENTS
Chapter
1 – Life in the age of anti-aging
The
fountain of youth goes undercover
What
would Moses do?
Letting
my hair go (gasp!) gray
Hope(less)
in a jar
Turning
50? AARP is on your trail
Amazing
Menopause Diet: Slim Down one toe at a time
Code
Red! Reading glasses on the loose!
Wanted:
New joints (Not that kind!)
Beefcake
aged to perfection
Ponce
de Leon’s lousy legacy
Chapter
2 – ‘Til death do us
part, but don’t tempt me
Love
me, love my grout
Pink
eye, the sequel
A
lesson in time-share math
Thanks
for nothing, Dr. Spock
What
leftovers have to do with love
Goodbye
man-diet, hello new girlfriend
The
car will survive this trip, but will we?
Beware
of the hardware zombies
Why
I won’t drive a potty-on-wheels
The
ugly truth about the empty nest
Chapter
3 – Holiday hoopla
’Twas
my flash before Christmas
Tinsel
Addict: One strand is never enough
Holiday
tree throw down
Let
there be light!
I
want Mood Swing Barbie this year
The
Best/Worst Christmas Ever
Happy
New…zzz
Sugar
cookies: WMD’s of the holidays
Chapter
4 – Boomerific
Frampton
on guitar – and Geico
Farewell
Funky Chicken
A
man and his pants
Note
passers – the pioneers of texting
The
hills are still alive
For
the love of love beads
“Honeymooner’’
Ed Norton was NOT my father
Confession
of a wienie boomer
Hot
pants flashback
Chapter
5 – Squirrels and bulls and chipmunks! Oh my!
Squirrel
wars
Canadians
to the rescue
Move
over Mr. Ed
Rules
for a happy marriage – backwoods style
Rock
of ages
The
Grand Canyon: Paradise for idiots
Chapter
6 – Whining in general
Bra
rage
Bra
Rage: Part II
Warning
to kids: Outta my way at the spa
A
garden like you’ve never seen
Shame
on Elmo!
Ring
Ding please!
Southerners
are too damn nice
The
“season’’ we love to hate
Farewell
to my favorite TV tramp – Erica Kane
Yoohoo!
Famous people! Where are you?
Meet
the Ugly American
Ode
to crummy March
Chapter
7 – The grandest time of all
A
grandmother by any other name
Grandma
fever strikes with a vengeance
Note
to self: Go to Toddler Boot Camp
The
day the mittens died
When
I was a little girl…
Toys
are us
The following were reprinted with permission and courtesy of the Poughkeepsie N.Y. Journal and Hudson Valley Magazine
Poughkeepsie
Journal
Farewell Funky Chicken
Thanks for nothing, Dr.
Spock
I want “Mood Swing Barbie” this year
‘Twas my
flash before Christmas
Bra Rage
Bra Rage: Part II
Ponce
de Leon’s lousy legacy
Note passers – the pioneers of texting
The ugly truth about the empty nest
Frampton on guitar –
and Geico
A lesson in time-share math
Why I won’t drive a
potty-on-wheels
Meeting Maria was a real thrill
Turning 50?
AARP is on your trail
Beware of the hardware zombies
For the
love of love beads
Warning to kids: Outta my way at the spa
“Honeymooner” Ed Norton was NOT my father
Hudson Valley Magazine
Wedded bliss,
February 2011
A load of bull, August 2010
Rock of ages, April
2010
Squirrel Wars, February 2010
Introduction – Finding my Inner Smarty Pants
There once was a little girl who always did as she was told.
One day, she stopped.
The year was 1966. The event was a Halloween pageant. The place was her Catholic grammar school; a place mobbed with frenzied crowds of boomer kids and frazzled nuns trying to keep them in line.
The school’s real name does not matter for when the children weren’t diagramming sentences and collecting nickels for third-world orphans they were allowed to name (Sonny and Cher were front-runners that year) they made up titles for the school.
“Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt’’ was a favorite.
There, in the basement level chapel-gym-atorium, the little girl stood center stage in a blue crepe-paper draped hoop skirt and bonnet that her grandmother had spent weeks making, unaware, or possibly ignoring, the costume’s flammable qualities.
The little girl began reciting the rhyme she’d been given about Bo Peep, but just about mid-stanza she did something totally out of character: She cracked wise.
“Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep ... and if you see them, tell them she’s at the Blue Bell Bar!’’ the girl shouted, invoking a sleazy watering hole not far from the school.
The room went silent. Her knees began to shake. She knew she had done something awful.
Then: The sound of rosary beads clacking together, religious habits ruffling with anger, gossip murmur sprouting from thin air. “God forgive Bo Peep!’’ one teacher cried, fainting on the spot. Another pushed a trembling Red Riding Hood on stage before Bo Peep could say another word.
All of a sudden, another sound: the sharp snickering of hundreds of grammar school kids, building to a dull roar. Then, accordingly shushed by none-too-amused figures of authority who “tsk’d” in unison but could not stop the laughter.
This surprised and pleased the little girl.
“They like me! They really like me!’’ she whispered, a line brazenly stolen years later by a plagiarizing Academy Award winner.
(And she knows who she is.)
Both the startled and the bemused at the pageant knew the line had first been uttered by a girl dressed in a fire hazard as she came to a crossroads in her life: The day she found her Inner Smarty Pants.
The event changed everything. Once a top-tier teacher’s pet, trusted with carrying handwritten notes between nuns (notes at which she never peeked), she now was sentenced to stay after school and write over and over on the chalk board:
Nobody likes a
wiseacre.
Nobody likes a wiseacre.
Nobody likes a wiseacre.
The little girl did not mind. She’d seen the truth and there was no turning back. Her Inner Smarty Pants was here to stay.
As you’ve surely guessed, I was that little girl on the stage. Over the year, my Inner Smarty Pants has gotten me in more hot water than I care to remember. I’m told my name is even engraved on a plaque outside a confessional booth in my hometown parish.
Aside from all the trouble, my Inner Smarty Pants has been a companion who has helped me see life through a different prism.
A twisted prism, yes, but a unique one all the same.
This book, a collection of humorous essays, represents some of the work that began that day at the pageant. I take credit for the words but my Inner Smarty Pants has been the inspiration.
We both hope you enjoy what you find on these pages.
Kathleen
P.S. The Bo Peep costume ripped and the blue dye smeared all over me at that Halloween pageant. But by some miracle neither it – nor I – ignited.
Chapter 1 – Life in the age of anti-aging
Fountain of Youth goes undercover
There I was, slumped in a chair, my winter brain on snowy day lockdown when the idea hit me like snow thunder.
“I know! Let’s go online and buy stuff!’’ I said.
“I know!’’ he replied. “Let’s not!’’
“Whatever,’’ I answered, which in marriage-speak roughly translates to: “When you go outside to run the snow blower, I will be at the computer with a credit card. That’s how we roll.’’
So out he went, and online I went in search of a new bedspread to replace the one that looked fine two months ago but with my raging case of cabin fever suddenly looked horrible.
This time, the cabin fever was so bad that not only was I shopping for a bedspread, but we had repainted, picked out new carpet and were planning a trip to the furniture store to replace stuff that didn’t need replacing.
Let me remind you that this story begins with an innocent online search for a bedspread.
That is important because the last thing I expected to see in the virtual world of bed sheets, comforters and useless-but-pretty bed skirts is something to cuddle with that makes you feel younger.
And I don’t mean Colin Firth. I’m talking about an anti-aging bedspread.
That’s right.
Before my very eyes, on the web site of a well-known manufacturer of all the frou-frou stuff you don’t need for a bedroom or bathroom but you buy anyway, was an advertisement for an anti-aging bedspread.
This product promised to rejuvenate my skin with its “copper-infused’’ fabric.
The advertisement explained that somehow, through the voodoo magic of anti-aging products, the bedspread fabric would touch my skin as I slept and – Presto!
Year would melt away, which made this bedspread sound like a Fountain of Youth with matching pillow shams.
It was a huge big trap for Baby Boomers, whose philosophy about aging is: “Let’s pretend.’’
We pretend that time is not marching on and we are tempted to look at anything tagged ‘‘anti-aging’’ no matter how unbelievable it may seem.
Which is how it can be explained that I sat at the computer, looked at the anti-aging bedspread, mumbled, “This is entirely ridiculous!’’ and then put my hand on the mouse and clicked.
Up popped the anti-aging bedspread video.
I don’t have to tell you who was starring in the video, unless you have been living on Mars since mass media advertising was invented.
She was a woman who went to sleep looking 19 and woke up looking 17.
This means the copper-infused anti-aging bedspread works only if you are barely old enough to vote and would look rejuvenated after a catnap on a bed of nails.
I had to laugh, and laugh I did.
So even if the day’s shoveling was about to wrap up, which meant the shopping was about to end, and even if Colin ignores my Facebook “friend’’ request, and even if the snow just goes on and on, things don’t seem so bad now that I know about the anti-aging bedspread.
It may not make me young, or even keep me warm.
But it did get me laughing, and that’s not a bad cure for the winter blues.
Back in the day, Moses went up a mountain, talked to God, lugged down stone tablets and presto! A star was born.
But that was then. This is now.
Today, he’d have an agent, an e-book called “Living Without Sin for Dummies’’ and a smart phone so he could post cheery Facebook messages while he trudged in the desert.
(“God says we shouldn’t covet thy neighbor’s wife – or donkey! LOL!’’)
Of course, some modern conveniences might have helped him. Google Maps for one. (“What?? We’ve been going in circles for 26 years??’’)
Moses also might have appreciated modern conveniences like underpants (who wouldn’t?) not to mention Viagra and something called “Sham Wow’’ that I just ordered off TV though the word “sham’’ in the name of any product is probably not a good sign.
There is, however, a dark side to living at a time when people have fooled themselves into thinking middle age begins on your 70th birthday.
It turns out we have a lot more potential for coveting, stealing, lying, thieving and bad behavior in general.
Things are especially different for women, who actually get to live long enough to experience the wonders of menopause and other thrills of Mid-Life Hormone Hell.
Back when Moses was alive most women were already worm food before the first hot flash hit.
The upshot is that those old commandments need a makeover to reflect exactly what modern people are up against.
So here, courtesy of my twisted imagination, are The Ten New and Improved Commandments for the 21st Century.
1. I am the Lord thy God, thou shall not have other Gods before me. George Clooney is an exception. Even the mighty Moses would have had a man crush on him.
2. Thou shall not take the Lord’s name in vain unless your brother-in-law has called for the third time to borrow money to pay off his casino debt.
3. Thou shall not worship false idols. A closet bursting with shoes might be excused if you can verify there are fewer than 50 pairs. (Phew!)
4. Thou shall not kill, but you can dream of whacking the 24-year-old coffee barista who flirts with your husband. You will not go to hell for this because it’s only imaginary – and besides, she is probably a tramp.
5. Thou shall not steal. This is still a good idea. However, if the stress of finding out your doctor is young enough to be your daughter caused you to snatch a chocolate from the candy bin at the organic market and you forgot to pay on the way out, we will look the other way.
6. Thou shall not lie – except about your age. As a matter of fact this is highly encouraged today and we recommend showing no signs of aging at all. Failure to comply is considered sinful and will result in a shunning at the spa.
7. Thou shall keep holy the Sabbath. As long as you hit church before a killer yard sale or the “Over 50 Meet-up’’ at the mall you are in the clear.
8. Thou shall honor thy father and mother. But if you are over 40 and they still criticize your job, haircut and life partner, you’re off the hook.
9. Thou shall not commit adultery – period. Sexting counts.
10. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s Lexus SUV, his four-bedroom, three-bath vacation condo or his trophy wife, unless he coveted your SUV, condo and trophy wife, plus ran off with her for the weekend to Vegas. Then you may covet his stuff ‘til the cows come home.
Well, that about wraps it up. If you can’t live by these modern commandments, there is one other option to living sin-free in today’s world.
Find a desert and start walking.
Letting my hair go (gasp!) gray
It was the strangest feeling.
At every beauty shop appointment the last few years, it felt like I was putting on a mask on my hair.
But I tucked those misgivings away and kept using hair color to cover up streaks of silver and white that had appeared years earlier.
The pretense was that time was not marching on, at least on my scalp, though there was plenty of other evidence to the contrary.
Just check out my upper arms.
Every year, the divide between my real age and my hair age got bigger while my hair maintenance schedule took on a life of its own.
“Hair Day!’’ was scrawled on every month of the calendar and no social event was attended without a survey of whether the roots could be seen in public or in pictures.
At same time, mind you, I had vowed to “age gracefully” with no shots, surgery or other unnatural interventions.
Obviously, my policy had an unstated hair exemption.
Late last year, it changed. Several friends let their hair grow out to gray, white and silver and they looked great.
And while people were whispering that these women looked older, they themselves were thrilled. They felt free and said they’d never go back.
“Hmm,’’ I thought. “Looking your age turns out to be OK. Interesting.’’
Then I went to a social function with people of my parents’ generation where the majority of women still had dyed hair.
“I’d never go gray,’’ one woman confided. “It ages women.’’
She was about 85 and looked not a day over 83.
Not long after that, I found pictures of my grandmother and her cousin when they were middle-aged.
Both had thick, striking salt and pepper hair. Their generation of women did not have the advantages that mine has had – like $100 beauty appointments for hair color.
But they also never had to listen to the catchphrase of the 21st Century: “Fifty is the new 30!’’
I can only imagine what my grandmother would say to that.
“If 50 is the new 30, then 30 ain’t what it used to be!’’
I made a commando decision about my hair. “Cut it short and ditch the dye,’’ I said to the hairdresser during the next visit. “We’ll deal with what’s under there.
That was nine months ago. A short, layered cut has helped the colors blend during the tedious growing process. On bad days, I turn to hair bands or hats.
Only once did I falter. “Get out the dye,’’ I told the hairdresser, then regained my resolve.
It’s about 90 percent grown out. The “new’’ hair is salt and pepper most places and streaked with white in others. It needs lots of conditioner and frequent cuts but most importantly, the hair is like me: We’re both in our 50s.
I love it and would never turn back.
People reactions ranged from positive to no reaction at all – which I take to mean they could care less or they are horrified.
Some have stopped me on the street and congratulated me on my bravery. I thank them but I really want to say: I did not take a bullet here, people. I just stopped coloring my hair.
But my favorite reaction is the Awkward Reaction.
“I do not like your color,’’ blurted out a relative whose hair color has come from a bottle for at least 30 years.
“At least I know what my real color is,’’ I muttered under my breath.
And a man who reads my weekly column in the newspaper and then met me in person had this to say: “That picture they were using of you with dark hair in the newspaper must have been really old.’’
So I corrected him and in the process kind of summed up the whole experience.
“That picture wasn’t old,’’ I told him. “My hair was just pretending it was younger.’’
In the drugstore, I cringe at the aisles of creams with big-lettered labels that scream: “ANTI-AGING,’’ “ANTI-WRINKLE’’ and “REVITALIZING.’’
I cringe because women of a certain age hate one thing above all else – reminders that they are women of a certain age.
And as I stand there I declare: “The only things that are gonna ‘revitalize’ me are an appletini and a hunk of chocolate.’’
Then I look both ways to see if anybody’s around and proceed to fill my basket with these hopeless promises-in-a-tube.
They squeeze in next to my “NUCLEAR-STRENGTH ESTRO TABS.’’
Despite the fantasy in my mind, I am not 25 years old, or 35 or 45. And 55’s on the horizon.
My sister came upon one of these ill-named beauty creams on a trip out of town last week. She went into the bathroom of her guest and saw a bottle of moisturizer called “MENOPAUSE AND BEYOND.’’
She thought of two things.
Thought #1. Cartoon guy Buzz Lightyear, who shouts, “TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!’’
Thought #2. The marketing twit who made up the name of the cream.
The second thought made her want to hurt something.
Badly.
She went to grab her Raging Hormone Toolkit, which contains a nifty, mini hatchet. She planned to do a Lizzie Borden on that bottle and chop it up to bits.
But she found that she’d left the kit back home so she did the next best thing.
She called me on my cell to report the discovery of “MENOPAUSE AND BEYOND” so we could laugh about it.
Me: “Why do they think anybody would buy something with that stupid name!”
Her: “Who knows? Why not call it “ ‘LAST DITCH MOISTURIZER?’ “
Me: “I bet a 30-year-old guy thought it up!”
Her: “Thirty? I’ll bet he was 20!”
Me: “Hahahaha!”
Both of us: “We are so clever! How do we stand ourselves!”
Then there was a pause.
Me: “Umm...do you think that stuff works?”
Her: “I’ll let you know. I just slathered it on from head to foot.”
She never called back, which can only mean there was no good news.
I don’t know why that surprises me because where these anti-aging creams are concerned, there never is any good news.
They might as well all have one name: “SUCKER CREAM.’’
Still, we keep buying and hoping, hoping and buying, because we live in a time when it’s a sin to allow yourself to age.
I suppose if any face cream people were smart enough to turn back the clock for good, they’d be working for NASA, not making useless products and tricking us into buying them.
So my sister and I have a message for the makers of “MENOPAUSE AND BEYOND” if they want to sell more:
Take a cue from ol’ Buzz Lightyear.
Update your bottle with a picture of a perspiring, agitated, middle-age woman. Make sure she wears a superhero outfit that looks like it fit her better 10 years ago.
She should raise her fist in the air and have a balloon over her head with these words: “TO MENOPAUSE AND BEYOND! NEXT STOP, THE MORGUE!’’
Then we will know that this cream, like all the others, won’t make us young. But at least we’ll get a laugh out of it.
And that, as they say, is priceless.
Turning 50? AARP is on your trail
As a rule, I don’t go around with a megaphone and blast my age to the neighbors.
Not that they couldn’t ballpark it.
They see my knee brace when I garden, jog, walk or do anything outside except lie down on the pavement.
But when I approached the Big 5-0 a few years back, the mailman used a dump truck to deliver mounds of unwanted stuff AARP sent me every day.
It was a dead giveaway.
Doubts in the neighborhood about my exact age were obliterated.
Since baby boomers spend so much time hiding their ages, AARP at least gets credit for figuring a good way to out us all.
Apparently, they have a mole in the secret agency that plans for the massive boomer retirement.
It’s called the U.S. Department of We’re in Deep Do-Do.
The motto is: “Holy Viagra Batman! Social Security’s a goner!’’
This mole gets lists of everyone about to turn 50. Then AARP kills one forest per week to make mail that reminds us of the very thing we want to forget: Our advancing age.
The least AARP can do for the 50-year-olds they hound is provide new mailboxes to replace those suffering under the weight of all those mailings.
Our mailbox has taken an extra beating because 28 days after my 50th, the hubby had his.
When we popped up on the AARP radar, I am certain someone ran around the office yelling, “It’s a two-fer! Alert the mailroom!”
You might think the folks at AARP truly care about your 50th birthday. But they don’t. They only want us to join so they can send more annoying mail.
The idea is to wear us down.
We get so tired of the mail that our minds play tricks and we say stuff like: “The mail’s heavy. Maybe we are getting older. Better sign up today!’’
This occurred in our house. I’m not naming names, but one of the 50-year-olds caved and signed up.
The other (me) is a holdout.
A few years ago, AARP came up with a new plan for enticing boomers.
The group had a huge makeover so we wouldn’t link the organization with “old.’’
They even changed the name from the “American Association for Retired People” to just “AARP’’ which has no meaning and seems to defeat the purpose of having initials.
More brilliant marketing.
It could well stand for the American Association of Ridiculous Plans because no matter how much happy spin they put on aging, everyone says the same thing when they get their first AARP mail.
“Oh damn! I must be 50.’’
It so happens that this year, AARP passed the half-century mark.
I volunteer to host the party. Everyone over 50 is invited. Bring all the AARP mail you received. We’ll send it back, one truckload at a time.
With the first load, we’ll include a card that reads:
“Happy 50th, AARP! You better get a bigger mailbox!”
Amazing menopause diet: Slim down one toe at a time
Thanks to hot flashes, my sweat glands work harder than Bruce Jenner’s plastic surgeons.
So doesn’t it make perfect sense that if you produce enough sweat to power a nuclear reactor, you are losing weight?
At least it made perfect sense at 2 a.m. as I leaped out of bed to turn on the fan, turn off the heat and tear off the covers.
“That’s it!’’ I cried. “Menopause is the answer!’’
“Huh? What? Give me a blanket,’’ my husband said. “‘I’m freezing.”
“Roll over,’’ I said. “It’s just a bad dream.’’
“You have no idea,’’ he mumbled and tried to cover himself with ruffled pillow shams.
The next morning, I was ready to attack the mall and try on smaller clothes, completely ignoring the fact that my old clothes fit the same as before.
But nothing will stop a woman - from the largest to the smallest - if she thinks she’s found a way to drop a few pounds without even trying.
Just ask my sister. We spent years trolling the diet world together.
We did the Beer-and-Bananas Diet. We lost no weight, but giggled all day.
We did the Eat-All-Your-Calories-By-11 A.M.-Then-Starve-The-Rest-Of-The-Day-Diet.
We lasted until noon on the first day.
We ordered “diet candy” (remember chocolate “AYDS?”) and ate the whole box in 48 hours. It was supposed to last four weeks.
We almost bought a plastic suit that hooked to a vacuum and promised to make you buff while you cleaned. We wanted smaller thighs but not so badly we were willing to do more housework for our mother.
And after all that, I thought during my night sweats, it turns out there is going to be an upside to being a middle-aged human inferno.
I explained my theory at breakfast.
“Day and night I sweat. It’s gotta pay off,’’ I said.
My husband looked confused.
“Let me get this straight. Menopause, which you said yesterday is making you crazy, is now making you lose weight?’’ he said.
He circled around me slowly to see if I was armed. Naturally, I suspected he was evaluating my backside.
“What? Do I look fat? Are you saying I look fat?” I glared.
He did not respond. He just ran to the garage at the speed of light.
Later, my first stop at the mall was the jeans rack, where all pants smaller than my usual size refused to go up over my hips.
The same happened with dresses, skirts and in the Bathing Suit Department, where I invented four Olympic gymnast moves as I tried to squeeze into things I had no business squeezing into.
There were only two possible explanations.
1. Every size tag in every store at the mall was wrong.
2. My menopause weight-loss theory was bupkis.
Depressed, I sunk into a chair in the shoe department, where an eager young salesgirl hungry for a commission shoved a sizing gadget on my foot.
“Looks like 6-1/2,’’ she chirped.
As a major hot flash swept over me, I turned to her and said. “Look Tinkerbell, my feet have not been that small since before I gave birth 30 years ago.’’
“Well, they are a six and a half now,’’ she sniffed.
I looked down and could not believe my eyes.
The menopause weight loss plan had worked, all right – but only on my feet.
That’s when my husband strolled by.
“I lost weight in two places,’’ I huffed and wiped my brow. “Right foot and left foot. Geez, Tinker Bell, turn off the heat down in this store, would ya?
The poor man looked at my steaming face. He looked at the frightened salesgirl. Then he did the logical thing when a menopausal woman is upset because her feet lost weight.
He spun, headed for the door and yelled: “I’ll be out in the car!’’
Code Red! Reading glasses on the loose!
Until recently, I’d only ever searched one parking lot on my hands and knees.
It was way back in college when I’d lost the most important thing in my life then – a ticket for free beer at “Ladies’ Night’’ at the campus pub.
But that seek-and-find mission was a real cinch compared to last week. Plus, it ended with the beer.
The only thing I had to show for my recent efforts were gravel tattoos on my knees and a giant headache because I never found the thing that got lost.
And it was the one thing I cannot live without these days.
I am not talking about my eternally patient husband. I am not talking about the secret hormone-swing-survival-chocolate stashed in the back of the kitchen cabinet (which had better be there when I get home).
I am talking about something far more critical to my survival these days. I am talking about my reading glasses.
If you’re old enough to remember when thongs were footwear, you are gasping as you read this and saying: “OMG! She lost her reading glasses! What will she do?
If you are 40 or younger, you’ll have no clue why I might have been so desperate to find them.
You won’t understand why I ran into the restaurant I’d just left, grabbed the 20-year-old hostess by the collar and begged for help.
Then I alerted the entire family to this dire emergency and made my daughter help, though she was about six minutes from giving birth to her second child.
We even had her two-year-old join in.
“Let’s dance with Elmo!’’ she squealed and ran in a circle.
“Hey kid! Get back to work!’’ I said, figuring that since she is the shortest among us she had the best chance of finding anything down on the ground.
It seems harsh, but what can I say? I was desperate.
Over the age of 50, you can lose just about any other possession and not go into a complete panic. But lose those reading glasses and your world turns upside down.
You can’t read the stockpile of anti-aging vitamin bottles on the kitchen counter (including the ones that were supposed to improve vision) and you can’t figure out if you’re cooking a roast at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or at 250 degrees for 15 minutes.
Without those glasses, I couldn’t read the text messages and I couldn’t see the little tiny pictures and videos that being sent to my phone.
I think I got a text about somebody’s new grandbaby, though I have no clue whose it was.
There was also a picture of a beautiful river somewhere, though it may have been a flooded basement.
I think I got a video of my granddaughter driving a toy car, or it was my friend, who is also short and brunette, in her new sports coupe.
I won’t know until the new glasses come in. Bribing the eye doctor office staff might have sped things up. But they are very moral people.
Damn them.
So for the near future, it’s back to tweezing gravel off my leg, remembering a time when a lost pub pass was my biggest problem, and seeing the world through a fuzzy and frustrating lens.
Wanted: New joints (Not that kind!)
Young pro golfer Rory McIlroy impressed the sports world with his win at the U.S. Open in June 2011. But he did not do it alone.
There was an army of middle-aged volunteer workers like me who sacrificed our time – but mostly our middle-aged ankles and knees – to make the whole event run smoothly.
We were there because we love golf and we love free tickets even more and volunteering was the only way to get them.
You may have seen us on TV when the cameras weren’t on the winning lad. We were the people wearing matching striped shirts and popping anti-inflammatory drugs into our mouths.
We stood for hours in our various “volunteer’’ duties then trudged up and down hills at a fancy Maryland golf course in a jealous rage because we could never do what McIlroy did so effortlessly.
You should know that working at the U.S. Open was my not idea of a perfect getaway. It was the brainchild of someone whose identity I will protect because I need him to kill snakes that get into the garage and to take out the garbage.
This was his pitch: We’d get close to the world’s best golfers and visit a course so expensive we can’t afford to even peek in from the outside.
Plus, for a few measly hours of work, we’d get pricey admission tickets for free.
I was suspicious.
“Will we hobnob with famous golfers? Will we drive them around in carts or something fun like that?” I asked.
“Maybe,’’ he mumbled, averting his eyes.
That should have been a major clue, but I didn’t think anything of it and dreamt of dashing about in a golf cart with golfing superstar and nice guy Phil Mickelson riding shotgun.
“More lemonade, Phil?’’ I would say.
“No thanks, but do finish that funny story. You crack me up!’’ he would reply.
Later, the ugly truth about our volunteer jobs was revealed.
Tickets were free, but we had to buy the hideous navy and white striped volunteer shirts, which were exactly the same for men and women and made us all look like silly couples that dress alike – or members of a penitentiary golf league.
We were assigned to work in a merchandise tent in a line of cashiers that was several inches shorter at the end of the day as our collective joints began to protest.
When we complained about standing on our feet, we were assigned to “security’’ – standing at the tent’s back door and cutting up boxes with a box cutter to pass the time.
To top it off, this location was fairly close to the busy porta-potties. Not exactly the stuff of my dreams.
I left him to his box cutter and asked to be put back on the cash registers where a pretty young woman with a blonde ponytail supervised the volunteers old enough to be her parents.
She smiled all day but probably went home and tore her prom queen sash to shreds in disgust over her workforce.
All in all, Phil or no Phil, golf cart or no golf cart, I’ll admit it was kind of fun and I would probably do it again if I get the chance next year.
Besides, it’s going to take that long to get over the trauma of being dressed exactly like you-know-who and for my right knee to return to its normal size.
As beefcake photos go, it was not the most revealing.
The subject was covered from the neck down in pants, a winter coat and a scarf.
He also sported minor jowls, a head of hair that is surely dyed and lines around his eyes that crinkled like tissue paper.
Still.
He looked so good that I did not mind if my neighbors saw me standing at the mailbox gawking at Robert Redford, an AARP Magazine cover boy.
Normally, I would stuff the magazine under my jacket, run into the house and say loudly, “Look! They put this stupid thing in our box again by accident!’’
Then my husband would say, “Guess that AARP card in your wallet is there by accident, too.’’
But not this time. There was no discussion. Not with those blue eyes staring back at me from the front page.
Who cared if anybody saw me at the box as the music swelled inside my head and Barbra Streisand began the lyrics to “The Way We Were.’’
Bob and me were in a time warp, and there was no escape.
The year was 1973, and I was one of three teenage girls huddled in a tiny bedroom, plotting a huge undertaking:
Convincing our mothers that we were old enough to see the new Redford-Streisand movie.
Plan B was the usual – fib to our mothers, sneak in and see the movie anyway. It was rated “M’’ for mature audiences, which meant you didn’t have to show any proof of age but you had to be ‘‘mature,’’ which was up to your parents.
Up to then, we were seeing movies that featured cartoon characters, talking or flying cars and singing nuns.
Now we were asking to see a movie that might have a scene where a man and woman were together in a bedroom.
With a real bed.
Our mothers surely did not think we were “mature’’ enough to handle that and they were already mad about one thing or another.