I'm "Officially" Old!

I’ve decided I’m officially old. Yeah, yeah, so I suppose that technically I’ve been “officially old” for quite some time now, but what sealed the deal was my trip to the drugstore at lunchtime.

And, no, smarty-pants, I did not have to pick up a package of Depends or a tube of Fixodent.

The clear indication – for me – was that I couldn’t select a nail polish color. Nail polish colors are no longer light pink, hot pink and red. They are purple, lime green, orange, dark blue and an assortment of weird colors that can’t even be found in the biggest box of Crayola Crayons.

I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t bring myself to buy a bottle of flat gray nail polish that looks sort of like the gray paint primer you see on half-painted junker cars on the road. And, like those half-painted junker cars on the road, I’d feel the need to take a “real” color and cover up the gray.

Where I got the idea that it’s acceptable to polish fingernails a hot pink but not an ocean blue, I don’t know. Probably they didn’t have the technology to make all these bizarre nail polish colors when I was young.

Nevertheless, I walked out of CVS without a bottle of pretty nail polish and my nails remain plain old boring “natural.” I guess my head was spinning from looking at the color palettes available to me that I didn’t even think to purchase a bottle of clear polish so I could at least give my nails a little shine.

Not that I don’t support younger folks in their quest to be “different.” Seeing a teenager strutting down the street flashing Shocking Purple finger- and toenails doesn’t make me cringe. More power to ‘em, I say. (Sporting numerous tats and piercings and ear gauges, on the other hand…well, I can only stomach so much…)

But when I see a woman of a…”certain age,” let’s say…wearing the same nail polish, I sort of think she’s trying to recapture her youth that has long since fled the premises.

And when an older woman wears a top cut so low that, as my friend Mrs. B says, “you can see New York City”…well, that’s just plain wrong. Especially when things up front there are not quite as, uh, “firm” as they used to be and you see freckled, wrinkly and saggy skin way before you ever get to the cleavage. Must be why I’m wearing turtlenecks more and more often these days.

Not that I’m ready to park myself in a wheelchair at the ol’ the nursing home quite yet.

I mean, I can remember when I was in my late 30s, my mother told me of “The Rule” that once a woman turns 40 she should not wear her hair long anymore. Well, unless, I suppose, they wound their long gray hair up in a bun on top of their head à la Granny Clampett.

But did I listen to my mother and “The Rule”? Not on your life! I think I would look crappy with short hair and the one time in my adult life I had “short-ish” hair, I hated it.

I’d use Jennifer Aniston as an example as someone who is Over 40 and Fabulous with long locks…but she had to go and chop off her hair again recently. My guess, though, is that she’ll grow it out long again soon enough.

Not that I’m really trying to emulate Hollywood, though. I couldn’t possibly keep up. For one thing, my “uniform” of black slacks, black shoes, and a little color pop in whatever top I choose for the day would definitely NOT do. Heck, the women in Hollywood get ragged on if they happen to carry the same purse more than once. That’d drive me nuts!

All I’m sayin’ is that I’d like to be able to go into CVS and find a bottle of plain ol’ mauve nail polish. Is that too much to ask? Or should I realize that no one is looking at my nails anymore anyway and I should just shut up, wind my long gray hair in a bun on top of my head and go park myself in that wheelchair?!