The Big Book on the Coffee Table

It’s never been so cold for so long... Suzy confides that the weather made her depressed and desperate. So desperate that she went out to one of those big evil bookstores and bought a tome on how to stay beautiful even though so ancient you remember when you could put a few gallons of gas in your Volkswagen bug for fifty cents and your breasts were so perky they stunned passersby.

I scowl at her. I’m above that kind of vanity, l lives on a higher spiritual plane, but I grab some post-its off the coffee table... I’ll just make a few notes I say, for a future book, a serious book.

Within seconds I have gleaned some astounding information... tips that will make a striking difference in my appearance. I am short. Some people, many people can look down on my head, even when I am standing. Only toddlers cannot see my scalp. That’s right, no matter how I fluff it, there are pink spots of scalp showing through my hair. I hate this, of course who wouldn’t?

The book suggests a spray. I order it online in "gray" it is not actually a spray, but a powder in a perforated shaker. I shake some of the fuzzy stuff on my scalp and gently rub it in. My god! My hair looks thicker. It feels kind of dusty but it looks thicker and since it’s so thick, no scalp is visible. I wonder how safe it is.

No matter, I’m on to the next tip. The author confides that when she was younger she could afford the luxury of a second tier of bras, the ones you just grabbed, put on and went with. No longer. Her drawers contain only flattering, well made bras, there is no longer any margin for error in that department. I resolve to do this, but I’m running out of steam, ordering a product on line seems to have sapped my strength. But I suck it in and grab every bra in sight, I don’t have the energy to discriminate, I take the good and the bad and throw them off the back porch, missing my neighbor by a hair’s breath.

She says we must buy Spandex, a spandex garment that you wear under clothing; spandex that molds your body into a perfectly smooth whole. Where does that fat go, where are those soft rolls of flesh? Gone, she says, gone! Replaced by a silky smooth flaw free body.

It seems to me that flesh has to resurface somewhere... ankles, elbow, terribly fat toes, and bulgy eyes? Will I resemble a French pug?

No matter, as soon as it warms up, I am off to the expensive lingerie store that is near the Viennese Café, but I will not stop at Julius Meinl even though the only other Julius Meinl is in Austria. I will not eat whipped cream and put too much internal pressure on my spandex, lest it turn on me, bounce me along the street... me and my body suit gaining so much momentum that we fly into space.