Flashes of Hotness

Airport people-watching: a twenty-something artfully beach-haired blonde nymph wearing skin tight Levi’s, a wife-beater crop top, and no bra needed to harness her perky puppies. Me watching from my seat at the gate: a sixty-one-year-old gray-haired would be mermaid, wearing baggy Levi’s, a sweatshirt I bought at Goodwill, and an industrial strength sports-bra that works overtime to hold up the puppies while simultaneously smashing them flatter than a mammogram machine. My husband: unsuccessfully trying to pretend that he is oblivious to the twenty-something barely-dressed nymph.

A glutton for punishment, I unnecessarily point out the nymph and ask my husband if perhaps I should trade-in my saggy, baggy, over-sized jeans for a pair that lift my bum and squash my belly with only the clear trade-off of vasoconstricting the circulation in my lower extremities. He not only honestly agrees with my facetious suggestion but advises that I completely overhaul my travel wardrobe by trading in my sports-bra, crew-neck t-shirt, sweatshirt, jean-jacket, and wool scarf (I find airplanes to always be freezing) for a puppy-freeing, midriff-baring, wife-beater. After all he says, while I have long-passed my age of menopausal hot-flashes, in his eyes I still have flashes of hotness.

I have a long-held theory that mature women who wear uncomfortable, unflattering, skin-tight, skin-baring clothing aren’t doing so because they love the risk of breaking a hip while walking in stiletto heels or because they don’t own a full-length mirror. Nope. She wears those ridiculous clothes because someone who views her through a lens of love told her she looks hot. After all, who cares what the world thinks if my partner finds me to be a vision of loveliness?!

Thank you for the suggestion honey, that is so sweet. Now can you please help me on with this jean jacket?