Bassets, Not Botox

Good news, fellow Boomers! There really is a "quick fix" to feel young and fit, with improved body image!

Forget the Botox, the liposuction or plastic surgery. Toss out those self-help books on graceful aging. And - not that I've ever done this - quit the desperate, pathetic flirting with 19-year-old cashiers.

The answer? A Basset Fest! Yes, I mean a picnic with a hundred saggy, baggy little dogs whose bellies have permanent grass stains.

Recently I strolled with friends in a park teeming with basset hounds up for adoption. Like creatures out of a Salvador Dali painting, the dogs waddled around on stubby legs that resembled melted candles, their long ears skimming the dirt, and tails wagging skyward like miniature pool cues.

Bassets are the official four-legged poster children for loose skin. Why, even the puppies had Ted Kennedy jowls! We humans were instantly the sleek, tall species. I felt so good that I later converted my Bowflex machine into a laundry rack. I also tried to burn my Buns of Steel video but a thick coating of dust saved it.

Body perception aside, I believe we deserve extra credit for wising up on our self-care. Mother Nature starts us off with resilient bodies that heal fast because she knows we'll treat them like crap! Or, at least I did.

So instead of bemoaning my aches and the blah-blah-blah of aging, I'm singing a new tune: My body is damned lucky to be run by an older brain!

That young, clueless blob of protoplasm I used to call a brain is gone! Older neurons have taken the helm with compassion for the dumb muscle tissue that shleps them around, 24/7.

An older model brain doesn't force me to stay up all night, chow down a breakfast of Twinkies and Coke, spend ten hours helping friends move - and then repeat variations on this theme for, like, years. You did it too? I knew it.

A Boomer brain encourages nightly sleep. In fact, mine insists that I sleep in a bed with all those frills: box spring, mattress, blanket, sheets, pillow. No more sacking out on the floor, on the ground, on sand, or on a cement patio. No sleeping all night anywhere inside a car.

Never again scrunched in a twin bed with another person, or curled fetal-style on a love seat. Ditto for being tortured over the steel bar of a hide-a-bed, or sprawling across an airport bench.

The reigning brain doesn't make me sleep with my hair wound around soup cans or on wire rollers secured by sharp picks. Many a morning I awoke believing I was divinely marked for holiness, that the gouges on my forehead were stigmata. Those stupid picks.

No more wearing lace or wool next to my skin, or suffering in socks knotted with crude attempts at darning. No more jamming my feet into shoes so long and pointy they could double as tent stakes. No wearing tight shoes to "loosen them up," or three-inch platforms, four-inch stilettos, or thigh-high plastic boots. Mini-skirts are finally taboo all winter. Okay, okay, also in spring, summer and fall.

Our bodies really should throw themselves at our feet and thank us! Wait, that's hard to picture, isn't it? Anyway, Boomer brains don't favor frostbite over "hat head," and will veto buying clothes that itch, chafe or pinch, even if on sale. Seasoned grey matter doesn't command us to eat food it knows will take revenge.

We no longer have to drive 1100 miles without breaks to "make good time," or exercise while wearing plastic to "sweat off the fat." And never again must we whimper, "No, really, I'm okay" instead of "Call 911!"

On those days we don't feel smart at all, we can hang with the bassets and at least feel taut and toned. For kicks, maybe someday I'll attend a Greyhound Fest and experience mingling with lithe, streamlined racers.

Nah, maybe not.

Copyright © 2006 Mary Tompsett