Lashing out

Watching tv the other night (something other than Phineas and Pherb - are you using your shocked face? Me too!) an advertisement caught my attention:

Physician proscribed Mascara.

Are. You. Serious.

I'll freely admit, I've used up my share of my health insurance benefits (maybe some of someone else's too, but I'll bet, they didn't even need them, whereas I've been essentially not eating since March, thus I'm totally entitled to stuff they didn't need anyway - sort of like the Free page on Craigslist, don't you think?) quite honestly, I'm simply gobsmacked.

I would have that this only cosmetic desire for longer, healthier, lusher lashes falls into the Pay For It Yourself Category of "health care" - in this particular instance, a term I use quite loosely. Extra boobies for the sadly passed over by God set? Buy them yourself. It is not a medical requirement to lug around a size C. (take it from me? most days, it's simply not worth the effort or energy) Want to lessen the Cellulite Tract Homes making inroads on your thighs? Rid yourself of those hard to reach Bra Rolls? Fine. Knock yourself - and your own bank account - out. Insurance companies aren't shelling out for teeth whitening, nose jobs, acid peels to peel off years of horrendous acne, hair color: That's on us.

Nope. It's a proscription. Health insurance picks up the tab.

I'd love to have the abs I had in college; or find enough of an ass that my pants no longer hang off me like the back of an elephant; medically, I'm hard pressed to find any Earthly required reason for any of that.

In fact, for most of the above? God made Spanx. If you buy the ones that extend up your midsection? It pushes excess fat - er - tissue right into your bra. Instant boob job! All for a mere $26.

(ps. Steinmart has a whole host of these beauties currently on sale)

However.

I ask you, what medical necessity is growing ridiculously long lashes? The ones you came with obviously have worked well for years, keeping bits of dust and assorted nasty crap from invading the delicate surface of your eyeball. However short they may be, they are indeed the only ones you need, so this sudden American fascination in proscriptively growing longer lashes confuses me to no end.

We've come so far in some places, and gone so far backwards in others. Our children, for the most part, are hard pressed to make adequate conversation with an adult if their life depended upon it. Our American values have taken a backseat (or trunk space) to our obsession with being Perfectly Groomed. Boob jobs started the fads, teeth whitening snapping along behind, butt lifts, face lifts, all in an effort to not show our real age.

Sadly, it also hides the wisdom we've gained, the laugh lines we got naturally - laughing with new babies learning to crawl, finding out that the word our little guys thought was so funny turned out to be "douche-bag" and they'd no clue what it meant!, inside jokes with our girlfriends, our spouses, cards in an aisle that caught our funny bone. The crows feet marching across our eyes document the number of smiles we've generated in a life time; the number of times we've squinted in bright sunlight to see if our babies (who may be quite big at this point) aren't drowning at the local beach, made the big catch during a football game, to pick them out at the many graduations we attend. From tearing up when they bring us freshly picked flowers....only to discover they're of the We Never Die Ragweed variety.

Those white hairs I've been covering up? Most likely, there is one for every time my son stopped my heart while doing something incredibly life-threatening and stupid; or just dangerous. Climbing the outside of a 12 foot staircase over tile at the age of four comes to mind. I'm willing to bet good money that a couple of them popped up during his first febrile seizure when he was two; the ride he gave himself down the stairs in a stroller, whacking his head on concrete at 15 months old, that heart stopping moment during a football game when his windpipe got squished, he wasn't moving on the field, and I leapt off the bleachers, to get to the field in time to find out he was just fine. Knocked the wind out of him; scared the dickens out of all of us - about six new ones showed up the next day.

Yes, I too fall victim to the latest hair coloring method - I don't believe that my white hair at this point means wisdom, I think it means I have a child who's never met a risk he didn't take.

Those new crows feet that have just shown up? I'll lay claim to those. I've laughed, I've cried; they are evidence that my little guy and I have come a long way - we're both still alive to see our next birthdays; we've had quite a ride getting here.

What, I wonder, would longer lashes say?