Didn't My Skin Used to Fit? (9 page)

I’ve got so many liver spots I should come with a side of onions.
—Phyllis Diller

26
Where’s Your Drive?

I don’t believe age should be a determining factor in issuing a driver’s license. One’s driving skill, reflexes, and knowledge of the highway laws are what should be held up to scrutiny. Age is nothing more than a number.

At the age of seventy, my mother scored 100 percent on her driving test. She was an excellent driver who preferred to drive in the slow lane whenever possible. When making left turns, her motto was ‘‘If you wait long enough, it’ll eventually be clear.’’ Having to drive the streets of Los Angeles, this motto often kept us waiting at intersections into the night, but Mother was emphatic. Whenever risk could be avoided, she avoided it.

The rules of the road have changed so much lately, I wonder if she’d even pass the test today, much less get another perfect score. Remember the good ol’ days when the potential answers to a question like ‘‘What do you do when someone is tailgating you?’’ used to be: (a) slow down, (b) swerve to avoid his hitting you, or (c) gently honk your horn? There wasn’t any (d) draw a gun on him, or (e) pull over and beat him to a pulp.

The test is more difficult because of so many societal changes, but as I said, age shouldn’t be a determining factor in driver’s license renewal. If, however, any of the following apply to you, you might want to consider voluntarily surrendering yours.

IT MIGHT BE TIME TO GIVE UP YOUR DRIVER’S LICENSE IF . . .

• you’ve ever waited in an intersection through three or more light changes before making your left turn;

• you consider the raised median your personal driving lane;

• you’ve ever worn out a new brake light on a two-mile trip to the store;

• you refer to going thirty-five miles per hour as ‘‘flooring it’’;

• you’ve ever honked at a pedestrian and said the words, ‘‘Move it, buddy! You think you own the sidewalk?’’;

• a tractor has passed you on the freeway, and it was being pushed;

• you’ve ever used a stoplight to get in a short nap;

• you’ve ever made more than three U-turns within a single block;

• you’ve driven for more than twenty-five miles with your left turn signal on;

• you’ve ever tried to report a fire truck for tailgating you.

You’re only as old as you feel . . . and I don’t feel anything until noon. Then it’s time for my nap.
—Bob Hope

27
Beside Myself

I don’t like the idea of my skin cells dying every day. I suppose it’s perfectly natural; it happens to everybody. We do grow new ones, but it still seems a bit morbid.

What is it that’s killing them off anyway? Are they looking at themselves in the mirror every morning and committing suicide? (If you saw how I looked in the morning, you might not blame them.) Whatever it is that’s making them die off, shouldn’t we be doing something about it? Oh, I realize there are facial masks, skin cleansers, astringents, and all sorts of other skin care products on the market that supposedly do a good job of removing dead skin cells, but I’m talking about something a bit more organized.

Perhaps we could hold fund-raisers or weekend telethons. After all, this is a problem affecting the entire human race. I know I’d rather not have to worry about thousands of cells falling off my body every day and forming a microscopic pile at my feet. If I could save one skin cell from an untimely death, it would be worth whatever work it took to achieve that goal.

But it’s hard getting others to feel equally passionate about my cause. All they want to do is scrub dead cells off and let them slide down the drain rather than do anything to save them. I once knew a lady who got so into scrubbing dead cells from her face, she actually drew blood. Obviously she went a bit overboard. She probably took out some cells that were merely in critical condition. I’m sure her intentions were good, but someone needed to tell her there’s nothing attractive about raw flesh.

Skin is a good thing. It helps people recognize us, and it keeps the dust out of our vital organs. Even as I’m writing this, though, my own skin cells are continuing to die despite all my efforts to intervene.

I suppose one day they’ll try cloning new human beings from dead skin cells. Scientists have already taken the DNA of sheep and cloned exact replicas. Not that I’m saying it’s the morally correct thing to do, but there has been a lot of experimentation going on lately. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want an exact replica of me walking around, especially one that looks younger than I do! And who’s to say the clone wouldn’t start charging up all my credit cards? Or worse yet, charging
less
than I do? My husband might want to trade me in for the cheaper model.

No matter how much a clone may look like us, though, it can never actually
be
us. For one thing, it wouldn’t have our life experiences, and knowing what we do, we’d want to save it from every difficult situation it might have to face. But it’s the unique combination of both the difficult times and the happy times in our lives that have made us who we are. So instead of having another ‘‘you’’ running around, all you’d get in a clone is a shallow look-alike.

That’s why if my skin cells have to die I’d rather they stay dead. I hate to lose them, but they did their tour of duty. They were faithful to a point, and now it’s time for them to say their farewells and go to that big loofah sponge in the sky.

Age should not have its face lifted, but it should rather teach the world to admire wrinkles as the etchings of experience and the firm line of character.
—Ralph B. Perry

28
Happy Birthday to Me

Birthday parties are fun, but they remind us that . . . well, you know—we’re getting older. Most of us loved celebrating our birthdays when we were two, eight, sixteen, and even twenty-one. But when we get past forty, we might not want to be reminded of the number of years we’ve lived.

Surprise birthday parties can be deadly the older you get. Imagine poor Grandpa walking into the kitchen on the evening of his ninety-ninth birthday. All he wants is that slice of apple pie he’s had his eye on all week. He doesn’t suspect a thing, and with his impaired eyesight, he certainly can’t see the shadows of eighteen people hiding under the counter. He feels along the wall, turns the lights on, and all of a sudden hears, ‘‘Surprise!!’’ The rest of the story can be read in the coroner’s report.

Then there are the gifts. Ah, the gifts. After forty, you no longer receive gifts that you really want. Unbeknownst to you, you’ve suddenly crossed over into a different realm, you’ve entered into what is known as
The Medical Gift Zone
. You’re getting things like medical dictionaries, callous removers, and baskets filled with an assortment of Bengay products.

I suppose to a certain extent it’s understandable. After all, nothing says ‘‘I love you’’ like a blood pressure cuff or one of those new at-home cholesterol tests.

When my husband turned forty, the only thing he wanted for his birthday was a full body scan. He didn’t have a single symptom, but if something was getting ready to go haywire, he didn’t want to be the last to know about it. His reasoning was this: What good is a new power tool if your triglycerides are on a roller coaster ride? A new tie means nothing to someone whose thyroid gland is about to poop out.

A full body scan was what he wanted, and it was my duty as a wife to get it for him. But you can’t just go to aisle 14 at Kroger’s and pick up one. And if you go to a hospital to buy one, they’ll tell you you need a doctor’s order.

So I got him a tie . . . and a doctor’s appointment. I do want to keep him around for a lot more years. I want to be able to watch him blow out seventy, eighty, or even ninety candles.

It’s funny, isn’t it? The older we get, the more candles we’re expected to blow out. If you ask me, it should be turned around. At our first birthday party, there should be eighty candles to blow out. We’ve got breath then. We’re full of energy and should be able to handle it without having oxygen on standby. Then we could start removing the candles, one per year. That way, by the time we reach eighty we’d have only one candle left to blow out. And if that’s too much, we could call in a tag team.

Live your life and forget your age.
—Norman Vincent Peale

29
The Good Ol’ Days

If you’ve lived more than forty years, chances are you’ve seen a lot of changes. In my lifetime I’ve seen the advent of the personal computer, the information highway, e-mail, the fax machine, the cell phone, space travel, and pet rocks.

I’ve seen changes in clothing, too. I’ve watched bell-bottoms come into style, go out of style, and come back in again. I’ve seen torn and holey jeans graduate from being a financial statement to a fashion one. I’ve seen hemlines go up, down, and even shred themselves.

I’ve seen hairstyles go from long to short to blue to purple to spiked to bald. And that’s just the women.

Body piercing used to be something you only saw in
National Geographic
or when you accidentally pierced yourself putting on a new shirt before taking out all the straight pins. Now some people are piercing every body part they can think of. I don’t get it. I had two amniocenteses done while pregnant with my last child, and that was all the body piercing I needed for a lifetime.

I’ve witnessed a lot of changes on the political scene, too. I’ve seen a president impeached, a president resign, a president assassinated, and one lose his meal in a dignitary’s lap at an overseas state dinner.

We’ve traveled to the moon and had plenty of public figures we’d like to send there.

I’ve watched dissatisfied, unfulfilled stay-at-home moms join the work force and dissatisfied career women quit their jobs to become stay-at-home moms.

I’ve seen dads become Mr. Moms when they realized that their children are only young once.

I’ve seen good changes and some that weren’t so good. Changes we’ve fought against and plenty we’ve had to learn to accept. But if life is about anything, it’s about change. We don’t have a choice in that. We do, however, have a choice as to how much
we
change with it.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.
—Robert Frost