Baby Boomers are aging. Or so the media tell us (constantly).
Apparently, I've reached a particularly critical age.
I think it was Barbara Cartland (she of the romance novels, pink tea gowns, and spider-like fake eyelashes) who once said that at some stage a woman has to choose between saving her face, or saving her body from the ravages of time.
Do I preserve my face (apparently a little blubber makes us all look positively dewy after a certain age - that age being whenever the first signs of real decrepitude start to set in), and eat as much pie as I want, or strive for a sinewy (a.k.a. scary) body like Madonna's but with a face like a weirdly dehydrated apple doll?
Or do I go for full-scale plastic surgery that fools no-one (and end up looking the same age anyway, just oddly smoothed out), walking around with a face like one of those horrid plasticized Barbie women from The Real Housewives of Orange County (which is hideously compulsive viewing, by the way).
Perhaps not.
Besides, how will I cope if my dog howls and runs away at the sight of me? Plastic surgery gone wrong is not something you can fix easily (Mickey Rourke being a prime example).
Maybe I'll strive for the sensible, middle ground. A bit wrinkly and a bit fat, but nothing so extreme that small children point and stare.
If I decide to try this internet dating thing, then I'll need to look reasonable from the neck up for my profile picture. And so long as any gentlemen I meet in real life only see me from the neck up, all will be hunky dory.
Whichever way I decide to go, this Baby Boomer's got options.
Too scrawny and with wrinkles like a sharpei? Just have some Restylane, Botox, or collagen pumped into the offending spots. Instant youthful glamour, with only a small chance of unsightly side effects like boils or botulism poisoning.
Too fat? Just have it sucked out. Only one or two people die from that each year. And then save the fat for re-injection when the diet finally works and I start looking a bit peaky.
I suspect by the time I decide whether or not to let nature take its course, or be dragged kicking and screaming into late middle age, I'll be 99 and it won't matter anymore.
Sometimes indecision is a good thing.
Sibyl knew her lip enhancement had gone horribly wrong. But the hat was fabulous.
So, what do you have to say to that, eh?
Go on, you know you want to...
