I could have been standing barefoot on center ice, instead of bathroom tiles.
It was dawn. The glow from the Santa Claus nightlight had ceased to illuminate more than two inches of the wall that held the medicine cabinet. I found the sink, grasped my electric toothbrush in one hand, then wrapped my fingers around the tube that lay beside it and squeezed.
Phlephft.
A half-assed fart that could have sent a five-year-old into a fit of giggles escaped from the tube. It was not the juicy splurrrrt sound a tube of gel toothpaste can emit.
Shine a Light On It
I switched on the overhead light with my elbow and realized that I had been about to squeeze Retinol wrinkle cream – instead of toothpaste – onto my toothbrush.
I was about to remove wrinkles from my teeth – the only section of my body that has been to the beach, but never been slathered with baby oil and burned to the consistency of a Maui potato chip.
A Bunch of Wrinkles is . . . ?
When I was 45, I had overheard a tiny old soul lament that her ‘wrinkles had wrinkles.’ So cute, I’d remarked. What a dear woman. I laughed.
I stopped laughing last September, some 40 years later. Families of wrinkles, generations lurk in formation on my face. I have the impression of a manhole cover on my cheeks.
It would be nice if all wrinkles were in my southern hemisphere – on my OTHER cheeks. I’ve already given up Bikinis for Lent. It wouldn’t take much to make them permanent.
I don’t know what I would have done had my wrinkles appeared before Internet search engines. All I had to do was google “How to Reduce Wrinkles”.
Eight suggestions popped up. I share them with you now:
1. Sleep on my back. I snore. I drool. How can I stay on my back all night? I lean to the left, asleep and awake. The deep crease on the side of my face is from years of left-leaning positioning. It would run against my progressive populist grain to let the sandman take me as I lounge on the right.
2. Sleep with salmon. I mean, eat more salmon. I need glasses.
3. Avoid squinting. Use reading glasses to put the kibosh on crow’s feet. So, “Mad
dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun” – ever without sunglasses.
4. “Slather on alpha-hydroxy acids (AHAs.) Do I get these from the mob or from
the Military Industrial Complex?
5. Trade coffee for cocoa. Wait! These elements are two of my best friends. I
would NEVER tell one friend I was only going to hang out with the other.
6. Never wash your face. I’ve done this ever since I read that Helen Gurley
Brown, editor of Cosmo, never washed her face. Of course, I didn’t read far
enough. She never used soap on her face, just Ponds. All my pillowcases have
imprints that could be considered art – if only I’d had the foresight to have
pillow cases sewn from canvas.
7. Eat soy for six months. Trying to find soy in the form that God intended it to be is impossible. Most soy is loaded with genetically modified orgasms, ok, ‘organisms. F U, Tofu.
8. Use Topical Vitamin C. The most potent solution is an emulsion that can be
had for $10 a drop – L-ascorbic acid. I had better start hanging out at
the exit of a Bentley Dealership and hope to be run over by one of the upper
one percent.
Move Over, Dr. Oz
Hold everything. Toothpaste has been known to remove years of road muck from a car’s fog lights. I’ll slather toothpaste on my cheeks.
Who needs retinol?