The Throat

I was buying lunch the other day.  Being sixty now and a bit frugal (read cheap), I inquired about the senior discount.

Oh, I'm sure you don't qualify, said the sweet young thing.  His eyes traveled to my throat--no, I wasn't wearing my ever-present choker, and no, he never got as far as my cleavage--just as far as the turkey neck--and promptly took off ten per cent.

I hate my throat.

My face is pretty much unlined thanks to a little extra fat here and there.  My eyes are bright with new lenses from the cataract surgery as well as with a love of life.  But the throat.  Geez.

I won't wear turtlenecks anymore.  I can't stand the tightness.  I like to wear shirts that...uh...accentuate my finer places.  I opted to wear chokers that help to hide the wrinkle (shudder).

When Mom was about my age, she had thyroid surgery.
"Don't worry," said the doctor. "I'll hide the incision in this wrinkle here."
If I hadn't heard him say it, I wouldn't have believed it.  Mom was shocked.  As beautiful as she was, I don't think her less than perfect eyesight ever noticed the wrinkle before that day.

I look at my peers. Some of them have had eyes fixed or chins lifted.  My husband will guess her age. Nope, I say, older than that.  How do you know? he quizzes. Throat, I answer.

Throat and hands, dead give-aways of a woman's age.  Hands, slightly darkened at the knuckles, an age spot here and there, the skin not as taut. The throat, no matter how slim she is, shouts "senior citizen".
It's that wrinkle at the base, you see, the one that swallows the fine gold chain you wore at forty. Don't believe it?  Ask Barbara Bush why she wears those blasted pearls.

By the way, men don't get turkey necks.  Some age well, some don't.  Some wear thick gold chains, but that is for prowess, not to hide anything.  There is no male equivalent of the throat.

I am better in many ways than I was at forty.  I am freer and more open than I was. I have more faith. I see things from a different viewpoint.  I have an insatiable need to have people like me--which astounds me because I never cared what people thought of me before.  I like myself most of the time.  I have discovered gifts and I use them.  I've been told I don't look bad for my age (why can't they just say, "Damn! You look GOOD"??).

If it wasn't for the durn throat, everything would be perfect!