TeleJoke

I doubt if I’ll ever forget it. It was one of those images that burn in your memory like a scene from a low-budget horror film. I couldn’t sleep for days, and if I’ve ever been certain of anything, I’m certain of this: I never want to see it again.

It was early in the morning, an ordinary day—nothing much planned except a business meeting I had to attend in about an hour.

I curled my hair with my curling iron just as I do every morning, then began to brush it out. Having read somewhere that brushing your hair upside down gives it more body, I decided to give it a try. Fat hair should be everyone’s goal in life, right? So I bent over and brushed ... and brushed ... and brushed. I could feel my hair thickening with each stroke. Not being able to resist the temptation, I turned my head to the side and peeked at the mirror. I caught a glimpse of my hefty hair in all of its glory all right, but I also saw something else. I hadn’t bargained for this. It was a complete shock. To this day it sends shivers up and down my spine.

What the “Ambassador of Obese Hair” forgot to mention about upside-down brushing was the fact that a woman over the age of forty should never look at herself in the mirror with her head down. If you’re over forty and you bend over, all forty years bend with you, believe me. Gravity kicks in, and every fold of skin that has ever thought about becoming a wrinkle suddenly gets its wish. Your hair may look great, but your face looks like Methuselah’s mother on her second week without sleep—during allergy season.

This is why when an older movie star is interviewed she tilts her head back in an unnatural position. Notice this the next time you see one on a talk show. Her head is tipped back so far you could give her a sinus exam. No doubt she’s had the experience I had the day I bent over and then looked in the mirror. Stephen King may have gotten his inspiration for his last three novels after doing this himself.

I don’t recall this phenomenon occurring when I was younger. I could bend over and tie a shoe, bend over and scratch my leg, bend over and take the dishes out of the dishwasher, and my skin stayed pretty much in place. I’m sure I could look at myself in the mirror upside down or right side up and know beyond a shadow of a doubt who I was.

But the person I saw that day was someone else entirely. Someone who looked about fifty years older and a lot scarier than the right-side-up version. Thus, I’ve decided to stick with my anorexic hair.

I suppose it has something to do with the law of gravity. Gravity affects our whole body, skin included, and there’s not much we can do about it. Areas that used to hold their own now seem to be falling faster than the stock market after an interest hike. Gravity affects men and women alike. It strikes people of every race, creed, and regional setting. You may be a northerner, but by the time you hit middle age, your body will be heading south.

For all its negative effects on the body, though, gravity does have its advantages. For one thing, it’s what keeps us from floating off into outer space. And since there aren’t any outlet stores on Mars, that’s a good thing.

I can’t retire. Who’d support my mom and dad?
—George Burns
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Excerpted from:
Didn’t My Skin Used to Fit?
Copyright © 2000, Martha Bolton
ISBN: 0764221841
Published by Bethany House Publishers
Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication prohibited.