Surpassing the Numeric Value

If I were an inventor, I'd spend gazillions of the government's money to build a sci-fi machine. Revolutionizing the global landscape, my gadget (which I'd naturally name after myself), would perform the most significant task ever crafted for something less than God. This creation would be assigned the world-saving job of pinpointing the exact moment when I got old.

Seriously.

It's well known among the people who know me (which includes those who do) that I have more gray hair than should be planted upon the head of anyone so young. Should someone measure out my hair, currently of an appalling fishing-wire texture, with my mother's not-entirely-brown variety, mine would outweigh hers. This seems wrong. And just a bit like punishment.

But it's not just the follicle matter. Remember when our teen-aged purchases always included Stridex, Clearasil and other pimply dohingies? Residing now in my shower stall is a tube of face cleanser marked 'tone and renew.' This product and others like it promise to revive the wicked witch skin and reclaim the once-smooth surface from the angry crows scratching their lines around my eyes.

It seems I skipped a step somewhere. If you were like me (and I pray to holy Jesus you weren't) you couldn't wait for the end of the pubescent pestilence known as zits. We can accept that one day there will be wrinkles and such - in that distant future where we all eat rice pudding in the nursing home - but there's supposed to be a space in between where we all wander the earth with the airbrushed look of fresh-baked supermodels. Apparently, I leapt over that blessing in a single bound. Honestly, I'm TONING AND RENEWING people!!!!

I've always looked younger than my years. A few years ago I got stopped by a cop near my house. He turned one of those sun-in-a-can spotlights on me and then laughed. Laughed! Apparently he thought I was a twelve year old on a joy ride (my family will tell you that Mr Law Enforcer added 'boy' to his description but I've blocked that part out). But now, with the old hag hair color and early eye lines, I fear my looks are surpassing my numeric value. Gettin' old, friends.

But, as daddy would say, at least I'm still gettin'.