Changing Perceptions

What are we doing to our daughters? Our sisters? Our friends? I write that like I’m distanced from the problem – but that’s far from the truth. I’m talking about body image. Self-esteem. Confidence. Like it or not, all of those things are rolled into one package. It’s a package that many of us routinely slam with a brick. For no good reason other than as a result of outside influences. It’s got to stop. My younger daughter hasn’t quite hit puberty yet. Judging by her changing shape, I know it’s just a matter of a bit more time. She’s a beautiful collage of little girl and burgeoning lady. She still has her “baby tummy” but now feels the need to wear training bras. I made sure I had a couple of those for her, long before she was ready for them. I remember the gnarliness of waking up one morning and thinking “wow – the tit fairy came last night!” All of a sudden, your clothes don’t fit the same and things show where they never showed before. It’s an odd feeling. Part excitement, part embarrassment, part fear, part desire to crawl back into bed and never come out. You hope no one notices – but you know they do. Gym class becomes a waking nightmare. Damn white t-shirts. Anyway, back to my little one (I know my time of calling her that is limited, so indulge me). On the last day of school, grades 4, 5 and 6 walked to a local public pool. My husband went along, as he usually does, to be a parent volunteer. When they got home that afternoon, he took me aside and told me that he thinks we’re heading for trouble. I asked why. He told me that, when the kids arrived at the pool, many of them excitedly stripped off their shorts and t-shirts in order to have their picnic lunch in their swimsuits. He told our daughter to go ahead and do the same. She didn’t want to. He asked her why and she said nothing. Just patted her tummy. My heart shattered. I grew up with a weight problem. It started much younger than my daughter’s current 11 years. My mom, with the help of my pediatrician, took a strong and caring interest in keeping my weight under control. My dad was an obese man. At varying stages of his life, I know he carried at least 350 pounds, maybe more, on his 6’ frame. I never knew exact numbers. My mom was a slight 98 pounds, soaking wet, and she just wanted to make sure that her girls fell somewhere in a healthy middle. My mom would give me a balanced dinner and I was allowed to have a small dessert. Treats weren’t off limits – just observed and controlled. My best friend lived right next door. Her parents thought it was a disgrace to put a kindergartener on a “diet.” So, after supper, I’d run next door to play and, instead, I’d be seated at their picnic table. A full plate would be set in front of me with whatever was coming off their grill – hamburger, hotdog, anything. And I ate it. I wasn’t hungry – but I ate. Why? Mostly because I was about five years old and my parents raised me to be polite and do as I was told. When my mom found out, she hit the roof. Although it certainly explained to her why I wasn’t quite fitting into those groovy little “hot pants” she bought me for the summer. (This was 1969, maybe 1970, remember – hot pants were perfectly acceptable for anyone from hookers to housewives). Jump ahead to my daughter at the pool. Only, it’s not her – it’s me. I’m standing in her place, seeing through her eyes. Pretty, one-piece swimsuit under my shorts and slightly oversized t-shirt. I watch the other girls, some a little younger, others older, confidently strutting around in their WAY-too-teeny bikinis, throwing decorum to the wind and bouncing boobs and booties for all to see. I want to join in. I want to feel that freedom. Yet, I want it burned into her brain that they are the exception – not the rule. I’m trying to raise my daughters to be proud of their bodies – to know that they are beautiful, to take pride in who they are. Yet, I’ve spent a lifetime trying to hide myself. I’ve buried my frame under ill-fitting clothes my whole life. I could have saved a lot of money buying items in the right size. I’ve paid for a helluva lot of extra material. Some people call it a battle. For me, it’s a war. A war that I’ve yet to win – but I keep fighting. Somehow, I always feel that I’m alone on the battlefield. Everyone else looks just fine to me! We were at a different pool yesterday, as a family. My sister had a new swimsuit. A lovely two-piece, in black, white and a touch of mauve. I complimented her on it and was surprised when she told me how stressful buying it had been. She recently changed jobs. She went from doing some very active, physically demanding, on-your-feet-running-around-all-day-with-no-time-to-eat-much-less-sit work and returned to an office job. Apparently, her body image is traveling conversely to her salary. I don't see what she sees. She also told me how, while in the changing room, she heard a little girl and her mother in the next stall. The girl was sobbing while trying on clothes. She hated how she looked. My sister opened the door of her stall, just a bit, as the mother and daughter were leaving. The little girl, about the age of mine, was perfect. Not too heavy, not too thin. Just healthy and attractive. Somewhere, somehow, we have to change perceptions. I’m not trying to advocate an unhealthy lifestyle. I DON’T think that we should eat whatever we want, whenever we want. I DON’T think that we should live without self-control. I firmly believe in the adage that tells us “everything is ok in moderation.” Maybe we don’t have a grasp on what being moderate really means. What I DO want is to live in a society that embraces little girls who want to run and laugh and play and swim, on a sweltering day in June, without making them question how they look doing any one of those things. Let’s not beat down the plants before they’ve had a chance to blossom.

You are cordially invited

I consider myself to be a pretty capable person. I have good management skills. I’m organized (well, except for my desk – we all have our downfall). I can successfully coordinate groups of people. So, why the HELL am I having so much trouble getting a birthday party off the ground?! My daughter just turned 15. My incredibly gracious sister offered to throw a pool party for her and some friends, instead of buying her a gift. This makes a whole lot of sense considering THIS daughter takes about a year and a half to write a Christmas list. She’s not good at asking for what she wants. Trust me when I say, in the overall scheme of things, this is a blessing. When you actually WANT her to ask for something, it’s a pain in the ass. So, fine. Here we are. My sister tells my daughter approximately how many teens she’s willing to have invade her backyard – a number somewhat higher than I’d be willing to deal with, in her position. I’m thinking this is a great thing. It should make the guest list a piece of cake (oh crap! I have to buy another cake!). She’s prepared to supply pizza, sodas, chips and junk food. Wheeee! All I need to do is throw in a veggie platter, maybe a fruit tray, the cake and they have a party. What could be easier? Well, apparently NOT the guest list! For about a week now, my daughter (who I’ve coined “Invitationally Impaired” or I.I. for short) has obsessed over who to invite and, even more importantly, who NOT to invite to this little shindig. It seems, when you’re 15, your whole social standing will be made or broken by the guest list. Our conversations have contained such gems as “I can’t invite her unless I invite the other two girls – they do everything together! Well, two at a time anyway.” Three best friends who can apparently only handle each other in pairs. Nice. Then, there was “My boyfriend is going to be the only guy at the party?!?” Uhhh, no honey. Unless you want heartbreak in mega doses, don’t invite your boyfriend to a pool party with 6 or 8 girls, in varying stages of undress (have you SEEN bikinis lately?) and expect his attention to stay centered on you. Whether it’s your birthday or not is irrelevant. Too much bouncing and swaying is enough to … elevate … any 15-year-old guy into hormone hyperactivity. The solution? Invite more boys. At this point, I.I. informs me that she “thinks” this girl “might” like that boy – but she’s not sure because she heard they were fighting a lot. Then, she can’t invite that guy because he’s already dated (and dumped) the majority of the girls on the guest list – BUT he’s a friend of her boyfriend. Somewhere around this point, my eyes glazed over and rolled back in my head. I know it’s not easy being a teenager. I remember it all too well. The shyness. The awkwardness. The struggle to do things “exactly right.” The desire to smack that bitch right upside the…. Sorry – my feet got stuck in the mud on Memory Lane. At this point in time, I.I.’s party still hangs in the balance. RSVPs were requested by tonight. Her email account is eerily quiet but at least the phone rang. Her boyfriend will definitely be there. Unfortunately, no matter how good my planning and organizational skills may be, this one rests firmly on I.I. All I can do is hope that her so-called “friends” come through for her. Otherwise, I’ll be intensely driven to smack those… well, you get the idea. In my book, “birthday” should always and forever be preceded by “HAPPY” – even if I have to micro-manage it to death to make it so.

Pitch a tent for me, big boy!

When you have kids in a one-income family, vacations can’t lay claim to a huge chunk of the budget. As much as we’d love to jet off to foreign lands, the closest we come to jets are the ones in my sister’s in-ground pool or perhaps in a hot tub at a “driving distance” hotel. No one complains – but no one would complain either if I were to muse “hmmmm… how does Disney World sound this year? Or maybeeeeeee… Italy?” They’d be dragging out suitcases in the blink of an eye and waiting for me to pack ‘em. “C’mon MOM, let’s goooooooooooo!” They love me, the little boogers. Anyway…. My husband has this idea in his head. “We should go camping. It’ll be fun. The girls would love it.” Yep – I’m sure they would. In fact, so would I. Except, in my book, camping is not a vacation. Camping is doing all the same things I always do – without helpful appliances, heat, abundant running water and supplemented by bugs and other furry critters of the run-away-from-them-screeching-like-a-girly-girl variety. YAY! Doesn’t that sound like fun? I admit I’ve considered it. I do love being outdoors. I love scenic locations. I love walks in the woods. I love sitting around a campfire. The idea of being totally disconnected from phones and computers is incredibly appealing. We could buy some basic equipment for not a whole lot of money and we’d probably have a wonderful time. I was on the road to convincing myself – until today. Today, we decided it was time to put up the new tent/sunshade/keep-the-damn-bugs-outta-my-dinner “structure” that we bought for the backyard. We have precious little free time to enjoy our yard so we figured this addition would make it more comfortable and welcoming. After debating for weeks about where to put it – i.e., determining the farthest geographic point from the back neighbor we like to call “Fruitcake” – we finally chose a spot. Private, quite shaded, out of direct view of any neighbor so we can enjoy a meal without feeling like the evening’s entertainment. Here’s how things went: Him: Dear? I’m gonna go and put that tent up now. Me: OK GREAT! I’ll finish what I’m working on and then come out and see how it looks! Five minutes later… Him: Uh… dear? Can you come help me for just a sec? Me: Well ok… but I don’t have a lot of time. Him: It won’t take long. Five minutes later… Him: Why won’t these $#$%$#$% poles stay together?! (side one falls apart) Me: Are you SURE you have them in the right places? (side two starts to slide) Him: I’m NOT $#$#$%#$ stupid… they’re numbered for %#$%’s sake! (side four falls apart) Me: Swearing at ME isn’t gonna get the $#$#$%#$% thing up any faster you know! (side three collapses) Him: Well it shouldn’t be this %#$#$% hard. (we start coming unglued) After succeeding at getting the basic bones of the thing to stay upright, we attempted to place the fabric cover. Holy crap. I thought World War III was a given at this point. Much pulling, tugging, yanking and swearing ensued. Finally, we got the cover anchored securely to the poles. Him: Wow. This is gonna be pretty nice. Me: Yeah. When it’s straight! Him: Well #$%# … you have a better eye than me… figure out how to make it straight. Enthused at finally getting all our ducks in a row, I retreated to the relative safety of my desk, leaving him to attach the mesh sides. Five minutes later… Him: Uh… dear? Me: WHATTTTTT?!?! Him: STOP getting pissed at me. Me: I’m NOT pissed… I’m just BUSY! Him: Well you wanted the damn thing up in the first place, didn’t you? Convinced that this fiasco now rested securely on my shoulders (without the benefit of the guide ropes to keep it from blowing off), I proceeded back outside to try to help him adjust the ties for the sides of the mesh panels. I swear the manufacturers of these things deliberately make them either too small or only the right size if you have 72 pairs of hands to make adjustments. I don’t enjoy their sense of humor. Five minutes later… Him: There’s already flies in here. Me: Well, I’m not finished tying the sides yet – they’ll get in. Him: Yep… and they’re too stupid to fly back out. Speaking of too stupid… what were we thinking? Can you imagine us trying to set up a whole camp site?!? We’d kill each other and, quite possibly, one or more children – if they weren’t already cowering under a rock to escape the trauma of “tent tantrum.” We’ll happily visit friends and family at their campsites but, I’m just about convinced now, our vacations will require pre-constructed accommodations. We’ll be "pitching our tents" in far less public (and less stressful) venues than the great outdoors.

Go Ask Alice

I can feel it. Like a heartbeat. It’s palpable. Just around the corner. It’s about to beat down the front door, shrieking and screeching…. “SCHOOOOOOOOOL’S …. OUT…. FOR…. SUMMERRRRRR!!!” Go ask Alice. Cooper, that is. He knows what I’m talking about because he’s been singin’ that damn song since time began – or since I was in school which, according to my kids, must have been when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and there were no such things as cell phones. Summer vacation. I miss it. Remember how it felt? Knowing that no one was going to drag you out of bed when it was still dark outside, shovel cereal down your gullet and push you out the door with a tuna sandwich in one hand and a 7,000-pound school bag in the other? For eight to ten glorious weeks of the year, you were going to do what YOU wanted to do, when YOU wanted to do it. You were going to swim, ride your bike, hang out at the park, get ice cream. You were going to shamelessly flirt with boys until you could claim one as a “boyfriend” and regale your friends with tales of your “summer romance.” Of course, the version HIS friends would get about how he “copped a feel behind the shed” would be much less romantic and probably more realistic. But who cared? It was SUMMER. Just that one word makes all right with the world. At least for a little while. These days, I have a different view of summer. I love it as much as I always have. It’s just changed some. Now, it’s my girls that feel the sudden rush … the exhilaration … the freedom from the constraints of every day. I just don’t let them go behind the shed! I have my own “summer joys” as an adult. I no longer have to wake up daughter #1, make her breakfast, make 2 lunches, find last-minute “WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU NEEDED THIS LAST NIGHT?!?” school supplies, permission slips or money, find an alternative outfit for Miss Fashion Frenzy in the 23 laundry baskets full of clean clothes I haven’t yet had the time to put away, shove her out the door with a tuna sandwich in one hand and her 7,000-pound school bag in the other, run downstairs to check email, figure out which clients need my attention first then run back upstairs to.… deep breath ….rinse and repeat with daughter #2. Summer means I can get up at a “normal” hour. I can make a pot of coffee and not feel compelled to squeeze my head under the drip just to save a little time. I can glance at the front page of the paper and not feel guilty if something grabs my attention. I can wander outside, coffee CUP in hand, to look at my gardens, do some quick weeding and watering, and appreciate the morning sunshine. I can even get my first load of laundry done and out on the line before anyone else is even out of bed. I know – doesn’t sound much like vacation, does it? But, for me, dropping the stress level of the other 9 or 10 months of the year is a break in itself. I relish the days of doing what I need to do, when I need to do it. That one breathy, heavenly, “does-my-heart-good” word… SUMMER… it’s what I live for the rest of the year. That is, until my one word is trumped by two, inevitable, “nails-down-a-blackboard” words – I’MMMM BORED. Ahhhhh yes, the other damn song that someone, somewhere, has been singing since time began.

If you sell it, they will come?

Our town has instituted a new by-law surrounding garbage… oops, sorry… GARAGE sales. Where it used to be a summer-long activity, yard sale-ing is now restricted to two weekends per season – one in June, one in September. Husbands everywhere are rejoicing. Their “hauling s*%t to the curb” jobs have just been severely downsized. I know, I’m being harsh. Garage sales are actually a lot of fun. To visit. Not so much fun to hold. I should know – I’ve had several over the years. My first-ever yard sale netted me about $1,000. Needless to say, I was a convert. I suddenly saw the value to lugging years worth of collected crap out onto my driveway and front lawn to show complete strangers just how much stuff I can squeeze into one single-family home. I was always a phenomenal suitcase packer. Moving into a bungalow was a serious upgrade. I never have to sit on the roof to be able to lock the doors. A lot of people see yard sales as a chance to find that “priceless item destined for the Antiques Roadshow.” I mean, who wouldn’t want to appear on national TV with a butt-ugly objet d’art, only to be told that “unfortunately there are the REAL Monet’s and there are FAKES – guess which one you’ve got?!” While there are definitely hidden treasures and truly valuable items held by folks who haven’t got a clue what’s gathering dust in the basement, the odds of finding something worth serious coin are low. But that doesn’t stop the stalwart. People have asked me how I’ve managed to make money holding garage sales. People have also told me what I “won’t” be able to sell – clothing being at the top of the list. This isn’t at all true. At my first sale, I sold a table load of baby clothes as well as some business suits and maternity outfits. So much for their theory! Thing is, I learned how to do a yard sale by attending a few others first – and then proceeding to do the exact opposite. Apparently, too many people subscribe to these rules: Garage Sale Guide #1: I WILL FORGET HOW TO DO LAUNDRY. To successfully sell clothing, please wash it and, if necessary, iron it. No one is going to believe that pair of pants is wrinkled from being handled by potential purchasers. Those pants are wrinkled from being manhandled by hubby’s belly! No one is going to believe that those colorful marks on the baby sleepers are fabric paint designs. They’re baby food originals, courtesy of strained peas, pureed carrots and an infant with a strong gag reflex. Garage Sale Guide #2: IF IT AIN’T BROKE, WE AIN’T SELLIN’ IT. There’s nothing I need more than a drip coffeemaker that just drips. A radio that only gets good reception if I hold on to the “free with purchase” wire coat hanger, stand on one foot, wiggle my nose and chant to the gods of the airwaves. Books that are missing the first 20 pages – “don’t matter… it don’t get good ‘til about Chapter 3 anyway!” Take note - If YOU can’t possibly use the item you’re selling, what makes you think I CAN? There’s a world of difference between bargain and bin-worthy. Garage Sale Guide #3: I WILL ENTICE YOU OUT OF YOUR CAR WITH MY ANIMAL MAGNETISM. In the spirit of all that is good and right, gentlemen please wear a shirt! A fellow down the street from us had his sale last weekend and evidently decided that walking around shirtless, beer belly bouncin’, would have the ladies swarming to his front yard. I mean, how can you NOT want to stand around debating prices with a complete stranger and his gall bladder scar? Yuck. I put a lot of time and effort into my past garage sales. I washed, ironed, cleaned and priced until I could do no more. I set up early and offered free, fresh-brewed coffee. I chatted, smiled and made deals so people would buy just a few more items – especially the ones I had no desire to lug back into the house. I also… uh… made my kids stand a block away from home... in the heat... on opposing sidewalks... holding poster boards... driving folks we’d never, EVER want to see again straight to our front yard. OK FINE – I got a tad bit over-zealous. At least when people got here, I was wearing a shirt.

Bathroom's on the right

I love music. Actually, I love lyrics first, music second. I’ve been known to be so deeply touched by song lyrics that I’ll play the same tune over and over, for hours on end, until I can get past the emotions – or – until the family starts screeching and banging on the floor because I’m driving them absolutely insane. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that my musical tastes are not limited to any particular genre. My little emotional marathons can run the gamut from pop to country, oldies to heavy metal. I’m an equal opportunity obsessive. I’m amused (and annoyed!) by people who “sing along” without knowing what the hell they’re actually singing. They know the tune but the words tend to sound like “I love… yeah… ooooooh…. uh uh…. la la la …. Baaaaby” - reminds me of a really bad game of “Hummmzinger.” I so love the folks who get the lyrics TOTALLY wrong yet truly believe they’ve got them EXACTLY right. There’s a comedian (whose name escapes me) who does a routine about travelling by car with his aging parents. They have a tendency to sing along with the radio, mutilating well-known songs. For example: “Big ole jet airliner” became “Bingo Jed had a light on” “Lucy’s in the sky with diamonds” became “Lucy’s in a fight with Linus” and my personal favorite from his routine: “Don’t let your sonnnnnnnn go down on meeeeeeee.” At least we never had to worry about Elton John and George Michael singing it THAT way in their duet. Surfing the Web, you can find entire websites devoted to “misheard” song lyrics. I highly recommend them when you need a good laugh. One I like a lot is http://www.amiright.com/ Personally, no matter how hard I try, I can’t listen to CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” without subconsciously singing “Theeeeere’s a bathroom on the right.” I guess we all have our foibles. Anyway, all of this brings me to my younger daughter. Like me, my kids love music. It’s a staple in our house and she’s even trained her budgie to love it too. The darn bird actually bops along to the catchier tunes. Imagine my surprise when I heard my daughter singing what I thought was “We Got The Beat” by the GoGos until I got closer, saw her boogying down in the bedroom and belting out, “We got big feet… we got big feet…. Yeaaahhhhhh! … we got big feet!”. Once I stopped giggling, I asked her if she wanted the right words. Turns out, she knew them just fine. To my surprise, she has a little hobby rewriting song lyrics. Who knew? She’s always been a fan of Weird Al parodies so I guess she had inspiration. I asked her if she had written anymore and she said yes – but she didn’t want to tell me in case she got in trouble. I couldn’t see what could be so wrong and encouraged her to sing it for me. WELL! Doing her best Sir-Mix-A-Lot impression, my lovely, polite, lady-like 11 year old daughter belted out her rendition of the ever-so-popular “Baby Got Back” – known to most as the “I like big butts song.” Picture this: I like big boobs and I cannot lie You other brothers can't deny when a girl walks in with an itty bitty chest cuz she ain't got no breasts you go "awwwwwwwwwwww" Ya know… it wasn’t a shining moment in my quest to be a responsible mom… you’re supposed to wait until they can’t see you before you burst out laughing.

Send in the Clones

I watched them for a long time, just to be sure. It wasn’t possible. Was it? The signs were all there. The similarities and differences. I have to admit it. It’s the undeniable truth. My daughters are clones. They are exact replicas of my sister and me. Someone should have warned me this could happen. One of the most interesting things I’ve determined is that my sister and I were somehow mashed and muddled together in some glorious genetic glue. That mixture was then divided in half and glopped into my womb, one gestation period at a time. True to form, those gestation periods also occurred about three years apart in both generations. When we were very young, my sister and I grudgingly loved one another. I mean, it’s not COOL to admit you love your little sister, right? She’s supposed to be a pest... an annoyance... or, in my case, the one you accidentally let fall down the back stairs in her walker because you weren’t paying attention like your mom asked. Don’t worry – she was fine. In the case of my older daughter, the little sister was the pest whose elbow she accidentally dislocated by trying to yank her up onto the slide and bridge contraption at the park. Don’t worry – she was fine too. When it came to school, my sister and I both turned out to be good students – an accomplishment to which our mother happily laid claim at regular intervals. Couldn’t have been us... we inherited our brains. My first child went off to school with great excitement. I got my first inkling that she would be a good student when she won a school board writing contest – in Kindergarten. When her sister came along, I admit I wasn’t holding out hope for any kind of genetic blessing. Most families we knew didn’t have only good students. There was always a mix of good and trying-hard-to-be-good. My sister and I must have been freaks of nature. Imagine when, to my surprise and delight, my younger daughter excelled too – an accomplishment to which I’ve now laid claim at regular intervals. They inherited their brains. Physically, there are the unavoidable parallels. In each sister pairing, there’s a slender half and a not-as-slender half. We all share similar hair color – although the older generation has become wise to “natural color” from a box. At least one in each pairing is ALWAYS stressing and obsessing over something – although all four of us are remarkably good at it. But someone inevitably has the pure common sense to stop and cuddle a kitten or drop everything and go for a walk – usually right before implosion occurs. I said we were smart – it’s just on an alternating basis! I’m always so happy when someone tells me that they could put one of my daughters and me together in a dark room (no denying the similarities there!) or that one of my children could just as easily be one of my sister’s kids. There’s an incredible joy to having ties that strong. One thing I’ve always known to be true is that I love my sister more than she will ever know. There’s a common saying that you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. Even if I could have chosen, I would have picked my sister. And like the sisters before them, I believe my daughters will stick together for life. They inherited the love – it didn’t have to be cloned.

Seeing is believing

I just read an article about Viagra. No, it wasn’t in my inbox along with the multitude of offers to super-size my penis. Given the volume of spam on that subject, I was really starting to be self-conscious. Until I remembered I don’t even HAVE a penis. I was even more thankful for that fact when I read that there are instances of male blindness possibly linked to Viagra and other such “woody wonder drugs.” BLINDNESS? That just seems like a huge risk for a hard-on. Viagra tends to be the butt of a lot of jokes. We’ve all heard about the painful, four-hour erections or seeing the world with a bluish tinge. Back in the day, boys were told that masturbation would lead to hairy palms and blindness. With the help of Viagra, I’d think that four hours of masturbation would guarantee any and all palm hair would be totally obliterated and that bluish tinge would likely be post-friction and pre-FLAME! Talk about watching sparks fly! I know, I know! THAT activity is not why men consume Viagra in the first place. Unfortunately, it seems that a good many women are beyond upset when their man comes home from the doctor with the ‘script. In fact, I’ve read a number of articles where women are ranting and raving at the intrusion of the so-called little blue miracle. Evidently, they already signed on for their permanent starring role on “Flaccidity Factor” and don’t find their teammate’s new “uprising” at all miraculous. I was taken aback that one woman had replaced sex with her crafts and other hobbies and she was furious that her husband wanted a share of her time for carnal activities. She felt it was a worthless pursuit and ridiculous “at their age.” What “age” is that, exactly? Dead?! I just got done telling my husband that, if I EVER say I’m “too old” for it, shoot me on sight for I will have evidently contracted rabies or some other brain-ravaging disease. Just a personal opinion. Many a man’s self-esteem is measured firmly in inches. When those inches aren’t firm, his “worth” as a man seems to shrivel in equal proportion. The fact that many women don’t seem the least bit bothered at having taken in hubby’s last performance is irrelevant. Even if he knows he ain’t gettin’ any, every man wants to feel that there’s still one good, solid, upstanding reason that he might. Ergo, the inclination to pop one so he can pop one. How sad that, if current media reports panned out to be true, a man dependent on Viagra and left alone to be the “master of his domain,” might discover the old wives’ tale “stop doing that right now, mister, or you’ll go blind!” is one step closer to the truth than we ever dared to believe. Gotta wonder if the June Cleaver’s of the world are rejoicing.