Gravity...It's The Law

When you're young and un-shriveled you never really expect the natural disasters that overwhelm your body in the aging process. The only real reference you have for getting old is your grandma. Grandma's usually the first observable "old" woman who has any impact on your life. Moms don't really count when you're young because they're in your life every day. When you see someone daily you don't notice the subtle changes that occur over time. It's usually not until we move out of our parent's house that we notice any changes in our mom. Sometimes there's a great grandma in the picture who can give you a glimpse of old womanage  from the get go...but you still never think of it as something that's going to happen to you.

I never had anyone telling me to stay out of the sun when I was young. Nobody told me to use sunscreen. Hell, we used to mix baby oil and iodine, slather it all over and bake in the sun. The thinking was that the oil caused your skin to burn and the iodine "healed" it. Don't ask me who the brainiac was who came up with this bright idea but everybody did it. Well, everybody slathered the baby oil, but not everybody followed the "insta-heal" iodine trick. You could tell those of us who did by the pre-surgical scrub look staining our skin. We were the same ones who thought we'd be insta-blonde by combing peroxide through our dark hair...turning it into a weird clown-like orange shade.

Another thing nobody bothers to mention, when you're young, is the effect gravity has on the body. The other day I was at work in my office and needed to crack my back. My "technique" involves laying on the floor, knees bent, hands behind my neck, and a roll up into a sort of "crunch" position. It gives a snap, crackle, and pop of relief between my shoulder blades.

Usually, when I crack my back, I have to lay really still for a couple of seconds just to relax. It was the same drill except that this time I felt something on the back of my neck. WTF?? There's a giant Shar Pei worthy fold of skin hanging off the BACK of my neck. Sort of a back of the neck wattle if you will. I think it's really odd that I never noticed this before because I crack my back at least once a day...sometimes more.

So yet another benefit of  old womanage, if by benefit you mean visually unpleasant side effect of gravity, is reverse wattleage. I suppose I should have expected this if I'd thought about it logically. I mean, the wattle in the front obviously has to go somewhere so it only stands to reason that gravity would drag it to the lowest point, hence the back of my neck. Kind of like boobage sliding into your armpit when you lay on your back. Same principal...and equally unattractive I'm guessing. I have to guess because I can't actually see the back of the neck saggage.

I would, however, bet a lot of money that it's nowhere near as cute as the saggage on the face of a cute little Shar Pei puppy...it's the stoopidist thing.