Friday, April 08, 2016

Beauty is Only Skin Deep

I was watching TV awhile back. Or rather I had it on. More for the noise than anything else while I attended to minor chores.  One of those tabloid shows was on.  The hostess with the perfect coiffure and the perfect teeth behind the perfect smile introduced a woman who was addicted to cosmetic surgery.  The lead in and my first and only look let me know all I wanted to hear and see.  I went back to whatever chore I was dealing with, hoping to work the horrific image out of my mind.

But I could not get the picture of her out of my mind. She had had so much skin pulled, tucked, inflated and re-arranged, she looked like a claymation figure.  The more I considered her image, the more absurd and further from reality it became.  I could not imagine what waking up next to her would be like.

I finished my chores and immediately fired up the computer.  Apparently there is a medical definition for addiction to cosmetic surgery.  It is known as "body dysmorphic disorder".  What is it with the medical folk that they insist on labeling every problem with a name that normal folk cannot understand?  Couldn't they just label it "addiction to cosmetic surgery" and be done with it?  Whatever.  I guess somebody has to keep a breath of life in a dead language.  Might as well be doctors.

With the unfortunate woman's face still fresh in my mind, I stopped in front of the bathroom mirror and considered what might be needed to give me twenty years back.

Hmm ......... No double chin yet. That's good I guess. My face is slightly larger now, but there's still almost a full head of hair on top.   My nose is still small and inconspicuous. Again, a good thing I guess.   But I'll tell you what.  A small nose brings with it some real disadvantages.  Because of it, I was never able to learn how to properly pick it.  Even as a wee one, hangin with my buds at the playground slide, I could never plunge even a knuckle deep to get at the good stuff like my peers.  At the time I was sure they thought less of me because of my lack of talent at nose mining.  But we all have to live with physical challenges and I have learned to deal with mine.

Once I had recognized the unfairness of a small nose, my eyes moved to my eyes obscured by glasses looking back at me in the mirror.  I removed my glasses and leaned in hard to bring my face back into focus.  What's this under my eyes? Are those water balloons? I am packing some serious eye baggage.  Looks like someone stuffed a tennis ball under each eye. And the crow's feet at the corners of my eyes look like Big Foot stomped on my face.  Add in the scars I had accumulated from years of launching myself head first into almost everything I did, well, I have to say maybe that woman didn't look so bad after all.

I considered my previous horror upon viewing her for the first time while checking out my 63 year old mug.  The face that stared back at me with just a little make up, maybe a highlight here or some shadow over there, could land me an extra spot on "Walking Dead".   At least I did not have to pay one red cent to grow this ugly.  No sense paying for something you can do yourself.

Later ..................................................

An addendum to this post - For some reason the comments were turned off for this post.  Not sure what I did, but I must have pissed off the Internet gods or something.

Odd.  Very Odd.

4 comments:

BBC said...

"Couldn't they just label it "addiction to cosmetic surgery" and be done with it? "

I agree......

Ol'Buzzard said...

i try not to look in the mirror any more than possible. that old fuck that hides in the mirror can't be me.
the Ol'Buzzard

yellowdoggranny said...

I'm 72...I'm happy with the fact that I don't look 72...so there you have it.

The Blog Fodder said...

So many face lifts the bags under her eyes were her breasts and there was no need to ask about the goatee.