It’s silver

 

 

Someone gave me a few coupons the other day for hair coloring.  It’s not that I have something against Miss Clairol (although I do have a bone to pick with the French companies); I’m not dying my hair.  All the ads I’ve seen urge me to get rid of the gray.  I don’t have grey: its silver; and I earned each and every strand.  Silver, if you will, is my Red Badge of Courage.

 

Why is aging something to be kept secret?  Look how much experience you gain with the years!  No one has to tell you the mail is late because the regular carrier has a day off: experience says that the postman sitting in the truck, barely hiding behind the thicket down the road, isn’t your guy.  The usual carrier parks up near the abandoned bakery for his naps.  Crossword puzzles become easier as you get older.  Why?  Because you don’t have to work as hard: you’ve been there, done that!  Your spouse and kids emit a high-pitched whine (inaudible to others) when they’re lying.  You know that from years of training: experience!

 

Think about it.  Silver tresses are also a mark of what you’ve been through.  Do you actually want people to think you’ve had it all handed to you, without paying your dues?  Why do you think it’s silver and not purple?  It’s a reward.  All those times someone cut in front of you on the road, in the supermarket, and even finding a pew in church: didn’t that irritate the heck out of you; but you let it pass?  I know my lighter edition locks are derived from insufferable bosses who made Dolly Parton, in Nine to Five, look like she had a job on easy street; its from the students who came to my class thinking they knew more than I; from a mother that has never been wrong; from the people who sought my medical opinion and then didn’t want to take any medication.  The silver comes from living without Carvel or Gilbert’s Ice Cream; and ….  Well, you get the idea: fill in the blank.   Don’t you want everyone to know how you’ve suffered over the years: and survived?  Don’t you believe in sharing?

 

I shudder at the though about reliving my earlier years.  Those days were when I paid into the psychological pension plan: at a costly rate.  Now I’m going to enjoy the fruits of my labor: the silver on my head provides as much pride as shekels in the bank!