Soul Woman
©Lisa Barker
I tried one of those self-tanning gimmicks. It took me almost an hour
to choose from all the products and if I had just spent that amount of
time in the sun, I wouldn’t have had to spend twenty dollars on an
experiment.
Everybody’s going to know I got a tan out of a bottle if it goes bad.
1) I’ll have a complete body rash. 2) I’ll look jaundiced, or…
3) I’ll look like George Hamilton.
It turned out to be none of the above. Instead I developed a
fascinating case of upper body acne. Lovely. Now I know what I missed out on
in high school.
It’s been two months and the acne still hasn’t cleared. It’s
like my skin said, “Let’s party!” and my pores said, “Bring it
on!”
You know a lot of women my age—pushing forty—go under the knife to
look twenty years younger. Ha! I have them beat by five more years.
And now I have a sudden urge to read Teen magazine and join the Drake
Bell fan club. Okay…I joined the fan club two years ago.
Have you ever done that? Have you ever expressed an interest in the
younger generation? You can really creep your teens out when you express
an interest in a celebrity their own age. Of course, you can’t
slobber all over the guy’s picture—or marry him unless you’re a
forty-year old and a celebrity yourself—but you can say, “My he’s
quite a talented young man!” right?
Pbbft. I have Drake and Josh dreams.
Now I’m not saying I need to start staying 30 feet away from
children, I’m just saying that occasionally I dream of a television episode.
In its entirety. I think the boys are cool. I think they’re
talented. I think it has something to do with the Nickelodeon station being
on 24/7. I think I need to move this column along.
So I got the tanning products. I loyally slathered it on and worked
the cream into my skin. I denied that I was on a carrot-only diet. I
gave up. The inside of my clothes were not stained (because it washes
off), but I certainly wasn’t about to let my husband see my grimy
laundry. “Geez, woman, don’t you shower??”
“Hey, I wash!” I yelled down the hall after my husband, just as my
eldest emerged from their bedroom affecting their best “Yea-ah,
whatever,” look. I hate to lose.
“Hey, I had one of THOSE dreams last night…”
“Mother!”
“I’m a soul wo-man, dada da dada da, I’m a soul woman!”
One thing is for sure. I might be a pimply old woman with an odd
orange hue to her skin, but I can dance!
. . . . . . . . . . .
Jelly Mom™ is written by Lisa Barker, mother of five and author of
“Just Because Your Kids Drive You Insane… Doesn’t Mean You Are A Bad
Parent!” and is syndicated through Parent To Parent™. To publish Jelly
Mom™, buy the book or leave comments, please visit
http://www.jellymom.com. Sign up for the complimentary Jelly Mom™
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Topics: Parenting Humor |
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