ATHLETE FUNGUS OF THE EAR?

I bet there isn’t a woman reading this who hasn’t had a moment in her life when she said, “Man, am I glad I am married. I would hate to be in the dating field with this…..”

It is hard enough to be a woman who, as the years go by, finds it harder, more expensive and some days just plain exhausting, to look her best. The first fact that we have to face is that no matter how hard we try; gravity will win. It is insidious, gravity, because it works slowly. Suddenly you are taut and firm and the next minute you’re not. You can work out at a gym all you want and although it is certainly good for you; gravity will eventually reign triumphant.

However, the most annoying fact is that men don’t have this problem. I talked to quite a few women before I started writing this blog and all of them said the same thing. Men and women are perceived by society with two distinctly different measuring sticks. Now, imagine you are over 50 and have to contend with the different measuring sticks.

Let’s start with my six months of constant ear infections after my second thyroid storm. I saw the ENT every other week to have my ear cleaned out. During a visit the doctor told me that he would be gone for two weeks and that if the problem popped up while he was gone, to buy some cream for athlete’s foot fungus and use a Q tip and put some in my ear. I was appalled!!

“Are you telling me I have athlete’s foot fungus of the ear?” I nearly screamed those words out. He calmly told me that I did but that once my body got its balance back it would go away. I remember thinking how glad I was that I wasn’t in the dating game. Can you imagine meeting some one and then having to say that you have athlete’s foot fungus of the ear? Now, let me be honest for a minute. Men would laugh and even brag about it. Yes, I asked several men who admitted they would have had to share that with their buds as it would be funny to have athlete’s foot fungus of the ear. Women have a different sense of humor and we do NOT share those medical anomalies. I did not tell anyone for fear the villagers would slap bolts on my neck and then chase me out of the Village with pitch forks and torches!!

Why is it men, when they start to get grey hair at the temples and hair line, look distinguished but women look old and haggard? No one asks why a man doesn’t get his hair colored but women can be cruel regarding other women when it comes to this issue. It annoys me to no end that women can be other women’s worst enemy when it comes to how we look. Women need to remember to straighten each other’s crowns when they tilt and not point out the fact that it is tilted. Yes, we do see advertisements for men’s hair dye but the advertisements for products for women are far more prevalent. Richard Gere got the title of “Silver Fox.” I have never heard of a woman getting the title “Silver Vixen.”

Crow’s feet and other wrinkles make a man look “weathered” or my favorite “weather beaten;” but women look old. Yes, we slather our faces with sun screen, moisturizers etc. to keep wrinkles at bay. We get Botox, eye lifts and even full face lifts, while men walk around looking ‘weather beaten.’ No one ever wonders if the man smoked, laid in the sun to tan or drank too much as those factors can contribute to wrinkles. Boy, are those factors at the top of people’s comments when it comes to a woman’s wrinkles. Personally, I prefer referring to them as “laugh lines.” After all, if you are a woman in today’s society you better have a sense of humor.

Now, I don’t want to forget eyebrows. We women pluck, wax, shave, color them in and dye them. Some women even go so far as to have permanent eyebrows tattoed on their faces. But men? Not so much. I have seen men with long eyebrows that I swear could pick up satellite radio. Walk toward one of these men with a pair of tweezers and he will whimper like a three year old that fell and stubbed his toe.

Trust me when I say that I have seen women in bathing suits that they truly shouldn’t be wearing but for the most part women wear bathing suits that cover their less favorable body issues. I remember an actress bragging about how she has been a size four for three decades. I thought, “Wow, I think I was a size four when I was a fetus.” Do men have these issues? Not so much. You will see men wearing speedos with huge pot bellies and a big flirty grin on their faces as they walk past women. They don’t seem to understand most women are not turned on by that view. However, why would they think otherwise? Stand up comics don’t mock them like they mock women. They think they look good and that women should be thrilled that they had walked past.

I don’t see much of this changing. Society is what it is and so we women will continue to slather our bodies and dye our hair. Don’t even get me started about waxing. Do you know what a Brazilian wax is? I’ll wait while you look it up. Now, I pulled a hangnail the other day and I thought death was imminent. I can’t imagine contorting my body into some yoga like pose to get wax slathered on my nether regions just to get that wax brutally ripped off by some sturdy German lady that once worked at Helga’s House of Pain. Yet, this is what some women do in the name of beauty.