January 3, 2007
When I was a freshman in college, I was chosen to emcee the Mothe/Daughter Weekend Talent Show. I saw this as a great opportunity for me to hone my skills and assure myself future emcee gigs.
As I prepared for my debut and thought of my own mom, I decided that I would poke a little fun at the mothers who were going through menopause. What was funnier than a woman out of control, I thought as I wrote. What was funnier than a mother who bit your head off one minute and held you in a hot embrace the next, I thought. Surely they would see the humor in it. I thought.
I did my bit and was immediately suffocated by the cold silence of the Big Mistake. I stood naked before a sea of gray faces, half with thin, tremulous lips, and you could almost see the heat roll off of them. I stood there in a pool of flop sweat and bad karma ricocheted back at me through a hundred dark and angry eyes and slapped me silly.
You just wait, young lady. You just wait.
So here I am 35 years later, and I can no longer wear contacts. "Lack of moisture," they tell me. I'm drying out like the Sonoran Desert. I can't raise enough moisture for a decent spit and my eyeball isn't wet enough to keep a con-tact floating, but I pee when I sneeze and I cry at the drop of a hat. There is no deodorant in the world strong enough. Knuckles get bigger and fingers get shorter and one day you look down at the keyboard and wonder how your mother's hands got there. A 55 gallon drum of skin moisturizer will last about a week. And 1 1/2 inch heels are "high."
Now in some peculiar way, I'm enjoying all of this.
Consider the alternative. It's death. And I've never had an enormous ego when it comes to my looks. My face finally fits me. I've earned every wrinkle that I have. My hairdresser keeps wanting to get rid of my gray, and I resist. I could nip and tuck, but I find the notion odious.
And I'm no longer as painfully self-aware as I used to be. I was trained to be on a constant state of high alert and anticipation, ready to take charge of any situation and to listen closely to instructions even if no one else in the world was paying attention. But I find lately that age has gotten the better of my early-warning system - or perhaps it has jammed from overuse - because I can now trudge up an airplane aisle with my head a million miles away and not even real-ize that the flight attendant is exhorting me to stay where I am. It's a wonderful feeling, that detachment, that notion that someone else might be acting as Sheriff of the Universe for the moment, and that I'm merely another speck of fly doo-doo on the windshield of a bigger life.
And I never get sad anymore.
I get pissed.
So stay out of my way, you unwary souls out there. I am woman, hear me snore, my butt's too big to ignore, and I'm doing this drug-free. Do not cross me or I may have to hurt you. Your best defense is to make me laugh until I wet my pants, which will be pretty much instantaneous.
And if you're reading this and you're a 19-year old woman, tight of skin and moist of eye:
You just wait, young lady. You just wait.
———
Pat is an award-winning humor writer who looks pretty much like the picture above on a good day.
Pat has published columns in the Seattle Times, The Newcastle News, The Eastside Journal, and had a humorous column in The Whidbey Marketplace for four years. She also appeared in Newsweek's "My Turn."
Visit Pat's web site at www.patdetmer.com to find out more or e-mail Pat here.
Comments
Theresa (anonymous) says...
Like Mom always said, what goes around comes around! Funny stuff.
January 16, 2007 at 11:55 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
pdetmer (pdetmer) says...
"What goes around comes around."
Is that a reference to flushing and the water going around and around, or is it just me?
March 29, 2007 at 12:02 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
pdetmer (pdetmer) says...
Whoops. I asked for this to be removed, because my reference was to the article about self-flusihg toilets that appeared just before this one.
March 29, 2007 at 3:07 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
zinlover (anonymous) says...
So true! I love your "Sheriff of the universe", the fact that you now get pissed, and your answer to that 19 year-old. I work with a group of 20-somethings and get a good aerobic workout daily-laughter-listening to their drama. I am that invisible old lady (all of 51) and I love it! Bwaaahaaahaaa!!!!
April 13, 2007 at 11:20 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
Post a comment
Commenting requires registration.