Mrs. Ferguson

"The guy cutting my hair thought I was 27 today," my husband says batting his soft brown eyes at me.  Lucky bastard. 

Truth is my husband really doesn't look near 40.  He has excellent genes.  His wife, however, can no longer pull off twenty-something ever again.  If the crows feet or creased forehead don't give me away, my birthin' hips sure do.  They look like they're still on the clock.  They're not.  It was an early retirement years ago.  Those heffers just stick around like a pesky boyfriend, begging for naps and Pizza/Movie Night.

I think being a full time parent for the past 7 years to my full time children has aged me faster than it has my husband.  Not to say his full time job hasn't taken a physical toll on him either.  I'm sure it has.  It's just that his is hidden underneath the hotness.  You see, being a Marine, he still works out (as part of his daily job, mind you) as much as he ever did.  Which makes it challenging to see the aging process on the outside, is all I'm saying.  Dude can still bench press a refrigerator multiple times, is all I'm saying.  Husband still turns heads of All the Girls in the Yard in swim trunks, is what I'm trying to get across here. 

The other day I jogged across a cache of teenage boys.  Some on skateboards, some shooting hoops with sweaty foreheads.  "Dude.  Is she hot?" One of the boys muttered as I slogged past.  I glanced backward to catch whatever little vixen there was who was about to pass me. 

Only nobody was there.

Shit.  They were talking about me.  So I did what any reasonable almost 40 something woman would do in my position.  I lifted my chin, hummed Immaculate Mary to myself loudly so I wouldn't hear their ever-honest teenager response and sprinted away.  Whew, close one.  Humiliation thwarted.   

Two nights later, I almost opted to run a different route to avoid the boy band.  Terrified my non-hotness would be confirmed by these kids, I wanted to remain a blurry mystery runner girl.  Not an exhausted burnt-out cougarless mommy.  Soon it began to rain.  Sheets and sheets of hard drops drilled down from the sky so I went for it.  Nobody would be out in this crazy storm.  No chance I'd be caught by any onlookers.  It was glorious.  Liberating!  Ridiculously stupid when I realized I had no place to hide my cell phone.

Trying, in vain, to roll the darn thing up my shirt sleeve like a pack of Slims, my slog morphed into a defeated shuffle in the downpour.  Seconds later, I heard a padding on the pavement behind me.  There, at my right shoulder, stood a teenage boy holding out a small beige and black towel.  The same boy who was part of the club I had been trying to avoid.

"Do you need a towel, Miss?" He asked like a concerned student, unaware we were now both sopping wet rats.

"Yes, actually...thank you...my phone needs a towel!  I will bring it back on..."

"Don't worry, we have a million more in the garage, you can keep it," he shouted as he backed into his driveway smiling like a Boy Scout.

And so went any hopes JT and his fellas would never see me up close.  One of them was able to confirm and report back to the others that "Nahh, she looks like old Mrs. Ferguson who teaches World History." 

Oddly enough,  I'm nothing but relieved.  And concerned this young man might now have a cold from standing in the rain.