UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Not for me thank you!
“You know it’s poison, right?”
This was the first rebuttal that came to mind when a group of friends and I were talking about growing older and sharing anti-aging tips. Most of them had been using it for years, and I seemed to be the only one not minimizing my crow’s feet and laugh lines with injections of Botox.
The second thing that came to mind was my eighth-grade science class. I can remember our teacher holding up a dented can of whole kernel yellow corn and announcing, “This could kill you.” I was obviously very troubled by this since even today I clearly remember that class. The can he held up looked like most of the cans in our kitchen cabinet. My mom was always trying to stretch our food budget to make it to the end of the month. Remember the aisle in the grocery store dedicated to scratched and dented goods? That’s where we shopped! The rest of the school day ticked by at a snail’s pace because I was so anxious to get home and empty our cabinets of that deadly toxin—botulism.
None of my friends seemed phased by my eighth-grade science class horror story. They were much more impressed with that week’s episode of Desperate Housewives. We were obsessed with the cast of beautiful women who may have been our age but looked more like our daughters! The ladies of Wysteria Lane could navigate divorce, infidelity, teenage angst, and then solve a murder, all without the slightest signs of stress on their perfectly smooth faces.
We all want to stay looking as young as possible. Who could argue with that? But still, I had reservations. I’m unlucky. If there is a speed trap on the highway, I will find it. If there is a giant hole in the sand left by an overly aggressive sandcastle builder, I will fall into it. If there is a torrential downpour of rain on a day that the weather man promised would be full of sunshine, my convertible top will refuse to close and I’ll get soaked.
The point is, I’m sure, if I were to get Botox, I would have every side effect associated with the treatment. My eyebrows would be stuck in a constant look of surprise. My eyelids would forever be in the half-closed position, making walking upright without bumping into things a feat. Worst of all, the corners of my mouth would droop, my lips would not fully close, and I would spend the day wiping drool from my chin. I didn’t admit those fears to my friends, but I succumbed to peer pressure and had the injections a time or two.
The good news is that I didn’t have the adverse effects I feared. But I was so anxious about it, I obsessively checked my reflection in the mirror, so I didn’t receive the positive effects either. I’m sure I even discovered a few new lines and wrinkles I hadn’t noticed before. The whole experience left me vowing to stick to my plan of avoiding as many things as possible with unintended consequences.
yes! I fixed it. all the emails went out with a typo in the heading! I guess I can't always avoid "Unintended Consequences"....
When I was 55 a friend suggested, as she had, to get a "face lift". I felt pretty good about the way I looked and passed on it. My theory has and will continue to be - if it isn't broken, don't fix it. When the pandemic hit I stopped coloring my hair. It is now the color of a moonbow. I am 70 now. I've embraced each phase of my life with joy and optimism. It's an exciting ride.