Jock Shopping & Crepey Skin

Holiday time is wonderful. You pack your bags, and jet set somewhere fantasy-like, relaxing into a completely different world. OR - you decide to stay at home, get yourself organized and have pieces of your flesh poked and prodded at during your annual check ups. Guess which option I chose this year?

Although I did not whisk myself away somewhere like France or Venezuela, I certainly did learn a few things, and, get this miss-martha-homemakers, I've organized all of my cupboards. I know, you're jealous.  I managed to preserve my tomatoes for the year, make blueberry jam, pickle some beets and make my Grandmother's chili sauce.  That in itself makes me happy. The pop-pop-popping of homemade yummies makes me smile. 

Between back-to-school shopping, embroidering until I gave myself tendinitis,going to the Canadian National Exhibition and preserving everything I could get my hands on ( I still want to make some salsa too!), my son's baseball team made it to the provincial playoffs.  Between games and practices, we still had time to do some shopping and spend some quality time together.

~We don't have big old Gothic
 cathedrals like they do in Europe.
 But we got baseball parks.~


Jimmy Buffett

THE SHOCK DOCTOR

Now, my son is your average boy. Except of course he's mine. That makes him the best kiddo in the world in my eyes, regardless of stinky socks, the occasional bad attitude, and thinking the living room his a very large clothes hamper for whatever he decides to peel off before flopping on the couch just before bed time.  Being an average boy, he lets me know he needs new stuff way past the expiry date of said stuff. His batting gloves look like the lollipop guild blew a hole in them.  Only after throwing the gloves out and getting blisters did he decide to tell me he might need a new pair. Since he's played so hard all year, I decided to take him for some new gloves before he competed in the last tournament of the year for the provincial championship. 

Off we went to the local sporting goods store.  This was going to be a guerrilla raid on the batting glove section. A simple in and out attack on the target item. We made a bee line for the baseball section. I spotted the gloves.  "Ok, honey," I said, "Here you go.  Which ones would you like?".  "Mom," my son said as he rolled his eyes heavenward, "these are girls gloves. Geez." "Oh. Well where are the boys gloves." I asked, looking around, not seeing any other batting gloves in the area. "Mom, I'm in a men's large glove. Geeeeeeez." my angelic son said, pointing in the direction of a very tall display of men's batting gloves that looked alarmingly like part of a spiderman costume.

Ok, so we were already taking slightly longer than I had hoped. I had some groceries in the car that I wanted to get home and into the fridge as soon as possible. Alright, there we were in front of the men's batting gloves. My son tried on this pair of spidy gloves, and gave that sound that mother's around the world know as, "I just have to have this".  His big brown baby boy eyes looked into my big blue mommy eyes just like the day he was born and he said, "Oooooh. These feel so good. They're not like my other ones. These ones are really nice." SOLD.

After a conversation with a male friend of mine, I decided to venture where no mother should in conversation with her son.  "Honey, how does your jock fit?", I said nonchalantly.  "Good." was my son's response. "Does it slide around or pinch anywhere, " I asked, just trying to make sure he was comfortable out there on the field.  "MOM! It's fine!" he said, looking around to make sure no one was within earshot.  I, by the sheer grace of God, just happened to walk by the jock display on the end of one of the rows.  I picked a package off the rack, and turned it over in my hands inquisitively. I had never had to wear one of these things. I had no idea what I was looking at, but I was sure this gel-grip, "Shock Doctor" brand thingy looked a heck of a lot more comfortable than the giant plastic cup he was currently sporting. Drill a few holes in that thing, and I could strain vegetables in it.

Anyway, my curiosity and silence encouraged some interest from Mr. Mommy's boy, and he snatched it out of my hands. "Hmm. This looks like it might be more comfortable," he said. That was my queue.  Just like Houdini, I had that jock out and the waistband of the strap held up to my son's waist. "Mom!!!! MOM!!! You don't do that!!!", my son hissed at me while he did the fighter-pilot-split-second-chick-check to make sure no one, including the great almighty had seen me hold a jock strap up to his body for sizing.  He snatched it like he was naked and our eyes locked.  "Look. You're my one chance at having grandkids, and I don't want those things being knocked around, so stand still and let me make sure the waistband fits properly", I said, never letting go of the jockstrap or losing eye contact. We remained frozen like that for what seemed like hours until finally my son surrendered.  He knew if he wanted the better fitting fancy gel-jock that he'd have to compromise.  Let's just say I had to do some creative size matching to get a teen jock and  men's waist size. Some poor man out there is going to go home with a giant banana hammock and an eensy-weensy teen waistband and I might stand a chance at becoming a grandma one day.

So, there we were, forty dollars down for the new gloves, and twenty bucks later for the "Shock Doctor". A well spent twenty dollars in my opinion.  Then there was the, "Oh look mom! Cleats are on sale!"....we've seen a two and a half size increase in the past year. A hundred and forty dollars later we left the store. One well turned out kid for baseball, and a mom with new runners picked out by her darling boy.

~"All the beauty of the world,
 'tis but skin deep."~


Ralph Venning

THE SKIN DOCTOR

The day after my son's successful baseball shopping expedition, we headed into the city for one of two rather anxiety inducing doctor's appointments.  Off we went to the dermatologists. As you can imagine my junior sidekick was thrilled to be wasting a couple of hours doing this instead of playing in the pool with is buddies.  "Bring a book," I quipped as I put my cell phone in my purse and double checked the address.  I didn't have to turn my head, I could almost sense the eye-rolling going on as he tied his shoes.

Off we went. Traffic was great. Parking was less great.  The reception staff even less great still. Anyway, I filled out the first page of my health history, and flipped to the second one which had a very large illustration of a face taking up over three quarters of the page. "Please point out areas of your appearance that you are dissatisfied with." the form read. What on earth?! Should I just circle the whole thing, or request a psychiatrist?  Was I supposed to be unhappy with my face, because up until that point, I was ok with it. Long ago I had come to the realization that not only would may face not make the cover of Vogue this century, but neither would my body. I looked again. The diagram was remarkably like the anatomical drawing on the back of an embalming form where the embalmer marks the procedure,except this was just a face. I looked around.  Was I in the right place? 

The sign just over the reception area read "Dermatology and Cosmetic blah, blah, blah......"oh for the love of pie! I was in some kind of cosmetic surgery office.  I was here to get some spots checked, not to be spot checked, or liposuctioned, or made to feel I needed a nip here and a couple of tucks there. Although.....now that I got to thinking about it, what would it matter if I took a look at the price lists? I mean just out of curiosity of course. Besides, I was early, and the gently cascading water wall was getting me pretty relaxed.

Before I could decide which parts of my body were the most evil, and negotiate the price list, I was ushered beyond the smoky glass door into  an examining room.  To my left, on the desk next to my chair was a book with a page opened to show before and after photos of skin pigmentation treatments. I couldn't help it. As grossed out as I get looking at weird skin afflictions (and trust me this was my one ooga-booga about embalming, ok,one of two ooga-booga's), I had to pick up the book and keep turning the pages.

So, I thanked God that I didn't have any weird skin colour blotches happening. That was good. I kept flipping. "Fat Reduction", was the next section. Ok, this I could relate to.  As I flipped the pages, there were photos of women's thighs, you know, the outside saddle-bag situation.  Then there were photos of women's butt sag in the back. Frankly, the before and after pictures didn't really make me think that the pain of the procedure would be worth it.  Although, I would be more likely, I decided, to have my butt fat removed than my outer thigh.  "Hair Removal" followed fat reduction.  Ok, ladies, let's face it, we all have that stray here or there we pluck and have vowed our girlfriends to plucking should we ever become disabled in such a way not to be able to.  I have never seen a man as hairy as they had in these photos. The hair on his back was long enough to brush, and the hair lines perfectly symmetrical on both sides.  It took me back to grade nine biology class when you learn about mitosis. Boy, whatever that dude paid to have the hair removed from his back was worth it. Poor man.  There was "Flaw Removal"....you go ahead and interpret that. I wanted to ask if that included transplanting a bad attitude as well because I had a special someone in mind if that was the case. 

The one that got me was the section labelled "Crepey Skin", which I, in my great academic wisdom read at first as "Creepy Skin". I was so weirded out by the title that I could barely work up the courage to turn to the photos.  Go ahead look up the word crepe...you get two definitions; the french breakfast pancake, or the material.  Ewwww.....I think I'd rather have skin like the pancake than a crepe skirt. ANYWAY...it was a section basically about having facelifts to alleviate the appearance of wrinkles. Just say wrinkles for goodness sake!  Ironically, the idea of lifting my skin, getting rid of my laugh lines and making my eyes look more lively appeals to me. But then again, I've worked really hard for this crepey skin.

Interesting. My first cosmetic surgery catalogue.  I was just finished flipping through the catalogue of procedures when my doctor walked in.  She was a soft spoken woman around....well, I couldn't even begin to guess her age based on the eerie transformations that I'd seen in the professional catalogue.  Off came my clothes and on went the gown. I wasn't there for nipping, tucking or crepey skin, I was there for some other medical based concerns.  In true form, I looked down and realized I had my underwear on backwards...yep, that's my style.

Standing, and trying to maintain some crumb of modesty, I held my gown against my awkward undies. "Hmmm...", Dr. Crepey Skin said  as she poked my torso. " I don't like the look of this here," she said looking up at me. I looked down over the crumpled up paper gown that I was holding to my chest, "What?", I said, looking down and not seeing anything. "Right here, can't you see it," she said, poking me again in the concerning spot. I tugged up the crumpled gown and looked again.  I then, very ceremoniously lifted and then squished my right breast into the paper gown so I could see what she was poking at. "Oh." I said, realizing I haven't seen the skin under my breasts since I hit a D cup back in grade 5. "I'm going to have to take that out and send it for testing," she said. "Just stretch out on the table there, and I'll do it right here."

After some needles in my stomach, some creative scalpel work, and cauterizing, the questionable piece of my skin was placed in a little bottle to be sent away for testing. G-ross.

On the table, she examined my face, and I pointed out a little bump that had creeped up in the past few months. It was ugly, and it bothered me. I was secretly hoping she'd take that off too.  "Oh well," she said in a mildly concerned tone, "we'll have to wait and see what the results of this biopsy is," casually motioning to the little bottle on the desk.  "Just take it off", I said to her, figuring I didn't want to have to face another trip to her office. "It's not covered by OHIP. Just one is," She said. Of course it would be the one on my abdomen that no one but her would ever see that was covered by OHIP.  "I'd have to charge you to take that one off," she said, handing me a conveniently nearby price list. And so began my experience with cosmetic surgery. 

So, as I gingerly move about my daily business with an open and very tender wound on my tummy, I look in the mirror and see my face free of whatever that bump was, and imagine that little piece of my skin in a bottle out there somewhere like a Hallowe'en novelty. Crepey.Creepy.