During the move, I somehow lost a motley assortment of belongings: dinner plates, underwear, a Japanese phrasebook, and so on. I found the plates, but never found the power cord to my stereo. A few weeks ago, I took a different bus home than I usually do; since it dropped me in front of a Radio Shack, I figured it was time to buy a new power cord.
The store was empty, save for a white-haired man working at the counter. Overwhelmed by the number of cords and doo-dads, I asked him for help. He directed me to the proper cord, and as I was paying, he complimented me on my hat. "Women don't much wear hats anymore," he lamented.
"Neither do men," I said. "I love it when men wear hats. I was born too late for that, though."
"Well, you look like you're a very young woman," said Mr. Radio Shack.
Truthfully, I love it when people tell me this. It's not out of vanity, it's out of a love for my grandfather, whose great public joy was asking people to guess his age. Well into his eighties, he was mistaken for a 64-year-old. Even allowing for some fudging out of politeness, he was lucky. So I love this game, too.
Mr. Shack guessed I was 22 and I laughed before revealing my actual age. Then he asked me to guess his age. It is always, always best to wildly underestimate (which he may have been doing with me). So I said, "Hmm. Sixty-one?"
Then it was his turn to laugh. "Nope, I'm in my mid-seventies," he said gleefully. A beat. "You can't tell because of the face lift and the Botox."
At this point I was about to come back at him with a hilarious joke about how it was the same for me, but Mr. Shack kept going on: "Yep, the face lift was about 11 years ago, and I get Botox every five months or so to keep the wrinkles at bay..."
And until I gently excused myself, Mr. Shack regaled me with tales of thwarted furrows and banished wrinkles.
The store was empty, save for a white-haired man working at the counter. Overwhelmed by the number of cords and doo-dads, I asked him for help. He directed me to the proper cord, and as I was paying, he complimented me on my hat. "Women don't much wear hats anymore," he lamented.
"Neither do men," I said. "I love it when men wear hats. I was born too late for that, though."
"Well, you look like you're a very young woman," said Mr. Radio Shack.
Truthfully, I love it when people tell me this. It's not out of vanity, it's out of a love for my grandfather, whose great public joy was asking people to guess his age. Well into his eighties, he was mistaken for a 64-year-old. Even allowing for some fudging out of politeness, he was lucky. So I love this game, too.
Mr. Shack guessed I was 22 and I laughed before revealing my actual age. Then he asked me to guess his age. It is always, always best to wildly underestimate (which he may have been doing with me). So I said, "Hmm. Sixty-one?"
Then it was his turn to laugh. "Nope, I'm in my mid-seventies," he said gleefully. A beat. "You can't tell because of the face lift and the Botox."
At this point I was about to come back at him with a hilarious joke about how it was the same for me, but Mr. Shack kept going on: "Yep, the face lift was about 11 years ago, and I get Botox every five months or so to keep the wrinkles at bay..."
And until I gently excused myself, Mr. Shack regaled me with tales of thwarted furrows and banished wrinkles.
Labels: botox
