Miss Marple, Here I Come!

All that is left to be decided about my death is its manner.  I have chosen the time, and do not care about the place.

It started with a pair of jeans.  I went to the store to buy a pair of jeans.  Just a store.  Not a hipster store.  Not a store at the mall.  Just a store, where I have bought jeans before.  But, this time, the music was too loud, the lights too dim, the print too small.

I was uncomfortable, but I soldiered on.  I was a housewife without jeans.  What were my options really?

As I stood in line for the dressing room, with 47 pairs on jeans slung over my arm, I saw a woman trying on a pair of jeans, just like a pair I was holding.  She looked ridiculous.  Way too old to be in pants like that!  If she had any real friends, they would tell her.

"Tracey?" said the woman with unfortunate taste and no friends.  "Tracey, is that you?  O.M.G! (She actually said the letters, oh, em, gee.)  I don't think I have seen you since graduation."

She was an old classmate.  We were the same age.  Exactly.  Except that she was in better shape.  And looking ridiculous in a pair of over-priced jeans.  (Well, I assume that were over-priced.  Honestly, I couldn't read the tiny print on the tag.)

It was then and there that I decided.  I will die sometime in 2053.  In February 2053, I will be 84 years old.  In February 2011, I will be 42, and this is definitely my middle ages.

What? you say.  Forty-two is too young to be middle aged, you say?  Middle age does not hit until at least fifty, you say?

Maybet.  If you're Jennifer Aniston, or Salma Hayek, or Julia Roberts.  But, I am not.  I live in the real world, without the help of plastic surgeons, or personal trainers, or botox.  (Though, in all fairness, there is not enough help in the world to make me as hot as Salma Hayek.)

In the real world, gravity can not be defied.

In the real world, forty-two is not young, if you are in the same talent pool as twenty-five.  But, if you lump yourself in with the sixty year olds, as I choose to do, you just might be the hottest thing going.  (Again, I am not.  But my ranking goes up quite a bit.)

And lets face it.  I have no desire, and less than no chance, of living to be a hundred.  I would consider eighty-four to be a pretty good run.  Most of the people I know and love now, will already be dead.  My "baby" will be forty-five, so I will most likely have met all of my grandchildren.   And, Hubband will only be seventy-five, still young enough to find another wife among the widows at the "senior community."  Yup, a pretty good run.

So, you will excuse me while I embrace this new stage in my life.  Comfortable jeans, sensible shoes, and the inalienable right to say, "You call that music?"