No Country for Old Women

They say it's no country for old men, but we all know it's really no country for old women. Hell, it's no planet for old women, unless there's some place I don't know about where they dig stretch marks and spider veins. Witness Courteney Cox, a truly (physically) lovely woman, who seems to have established herself as an example of aging gracefully, which in this day means not visibly aging at all. Except Ms. Cox, who advertises a product called Kinerase (which means "kind of" erases your wrinkles, except not really, because that's not technically possible) has come clean about overdoing Botox. Apparently, there's such a thing as "just enough" botulism one can inject in one's face, and then there's too much. It's a fine (no pun intended) line.

Worse still, Cox was once quoted as saying she'd made a pact with fellow actor Elisabeth Shue never to have plastic surgery, because the two women believed they were "role models" for young girls. Excuse me, but doesn't being a role model imply that you've done something worthy of modeling? And since when can you nominate yourself for role modelship? Isn't somebody supposed to do that for you?

Last night -- being neither a role model nor an advertising spokesperson, but just a mom trying to scrounge up enough ingredients for dinner -- I was at Dominick's buying exactly one bottle of dry white wine for the sole in lemon-butter sauce I was making (I was!). A man/boy stood in front of me in line, hopping around while he waited to buy his energy drink and package of Starburst. (Personally, I thought he had enough energy without the caffeine and sugar, but what do I know.)

Suddenly, he leaned toward me and said, sotto voce, "I couldn't help but notice how attractive you are."

"Excuse me?" I asked, also leaning forward. I thought maybe he needed to borrow a quarter or something and was embarrassed to have the cashier overhear.

"I noticed how attractive you are. I wondered if I could get your phone number."

"Are you kidding?" I asked.

"I can't notice how attractive you are?" Apparently he had a finite number of pickup lines.

"Is this a joke?" I wasn't smiling. "Because, No. 1, I'm 15 years older than you, and No. 2, I'm married."

"You're married? Oh, sorry."

He turned around, and we commenced ignoring each other until the woman with the three bags of groceries in the Express lane was finished, and we could get our purchases rung up and go on our respective white wine/energy drink laden ways.

I was steamed. This guy and I hadn't so much as made eye contact, unless he had extra peepers in the back of his head, and mine had inadvertently met his before he made his big move. It had to be a joke, right, because what else would prompt a 20-something to ask a 40-something for her phone number without any contact whatsoever?

I'd like to believe that I'm really hot, just as I'd like to believe in life on other planets and the possibility of nailing some Jimmy Choo's at Nordstrom's Rack, but I was bathed in the super-white light of the grocery store, the kind of light otherwise reserved for interrogation rooms and DUI suspects, and there was no mistaking that I was somebody's mom, because I couldn't so much as dig in my purse for my wallet without first dredging up a box of crayons and a Matchbox car. Even without a child in tow, I ooze mom-mones, the kind of anti-phermone that drives men. Away. Fast. 

Once and for all, the myth of the MILF is ready for debunking.

You see, there really is no MILF that anybody wants to ILF, unless it's an accidental mother. An accidental mother is somebody who was something else first, say Gwen Stefani or Jessica Alba, who proceeds to have a child and then goes on primarily being what she already was: a rock star or a starlet. With a nanny.

The key to being a MILF is not to look like a mother, at all. No mommy tummy, no mom jeans (see, even the word is a pejorative!), no purse full of Matchboxes, unless they're from all the trendy clubs you've visited recently, while your precious babies were home asleep on the couch with the nanny.

So why can't I accept my gymnastics-mom status and go along my merry way? Because even I couldn't believe some stranger wanted to "hook up" with me. Isn't that how the kids say it these days? I wouldn't know, because my kid is only four, and the only hooking up he is doing is Mr. Potato Head's nose to his face.