What You Do When You're Old

Oh, it's all nakedly hair-free when you're staring in the bathroom mirror, tweezer in hand, but the very second you're in a public place, like your car in the Wal-Mart parking lot, WHAP, there's a forest of barb-wire-things sprouting from your chin.

It must be stray food that makes those hairs grow so fast. Spilled coffee raises the alkalinity of the chin soil, I understand.

Anyway, you grab the tweezers that are stashed in the console, for just such an occasion (when you're younger, it's lip gloss and rubbers that are hidden there; when you're 52, it's tweezers and slight-urine-loss-mini-pads). You flip down the driver's mirror and start searching for the offending hair, which crawled back up its follicle the moment the tweezers came to light, when something catches your eye.

You look to your right and there, in the car next to you, is another woman plucking hairs off HER chin.

Is this what happens to us all when we hit 50? We hang out in Wal-Mart parking lots plucking our chins?

I'd raise my chin and try not to worry about such things, but I'm afraid I might poke my eye out.

I Shaved My Legs This Morning

I just shaved my legs (keep it down, yeah yeah, everyone's a critic) and I realized what a drag it is to be white. Especially this time of year. Especially in a cold climate. I am SO white that I'm almost translucent. Do people of colours other than pasty go through this?

Doctors are always saying it's no good to get a tan anymore so that means a lifetime of see-through skin. At least I don't have to worry about X-rays.

"Remarkable how the Caucasian-ness of this patient saves money on expensive procedures. Look, there's her gallstones. And her colon – mother of all that is holy, does she ever eat a lot of fibre! And, oh wow, she's pregnant! And it's TWINS! Oh, sorry. False alarm. It's just her mammary glands hanging at navel level. Can someone hook this poor woman up with Bob in plastic surgery?"

And here's the thing about leg hair. There's enough of it to look really gross but not enough to disguise varicose veins.

God hates me.