THIS BLOG HAS MOVED

Please join us at snowcoveredhills.com.

Get the posts on my new blog by e-mail. Enter your e-mail address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

New posts on snowcoveredhills.com:

Friday, February 08, 2008

I'm looking at you


Okay, so I'm not looking at you. I'm looking at myself. My aging self. I am getting old, and I don't like it at all.

I noticed my first forehead wrinkle the other day.

Can you see it? I'm not sure you can. It's there, even if it's hiding under my hair.

Grimacing at myself in the mirror, I discovered that the wrinkle becomes deeper with certain facial expressions:

  • Anger
  • Irritation
  • Shock
  • Horror
  • Frustration
  • Confusion
  • Exasperation
  • Righteous indignation
This is a problem, because my typical day goes something like this:
  1. Phone rings. Someone shrieks that there is a problem -- a big problem! EVERYBODY PANIC.

  2. I ask the person to explain. The explanation shows that there really isn't a problem except in the person's head.

  3. I explain that there really isn't a problem.

  4. The person is unconvinced. EVERYBODY PANIC.

  5. I spend a few hours researching the huge problem. The person calls or e-mails every 20 minutes, demanding an update. EVERYBODY PANIC. Usually, there is very little to research because, as I might have mentioned earlier, it isn't actually a problem.

  6. I get a few curse words out of my system before calling the person and presenting Actual Proof that there isn't a problem, or if there is, it is an entirely different problem than the person would like it to be.

  7. Deep breath.

  8. Repeat steps 1-7.
There is absolutely no chance this wrinkle will go away. It is probably getting deeper by the hour. I better make myself comfortable and settle in for the long haul.

4 comments:

Torq said...

I have forehead wrinkles which grow deeper and deeper upon these facial expressions: Interest, Puzzlement, Deep Concentration, and Amusement. Seeing as that is pretty much it for my facial expressions, I am pretty sure that my brain is going to fall out of one of these wrinkles pretty soon!

Karen said...

Oh come on. You're 50% younger than me. i get the EVERYBODY PANIC calls too. You'll be fine. Stop staring at your forehead. The wrinkle (which only you can see) will go away. I promise.



Or something truly important will happen and make the wrinkle seem superfluous :)

Jackie S. Quire said...

you suck. i have two wrinkles. and i'm 22.

they appear most when i raise my eyebrows.

going to be a problem in a territory where such a simple movement indicates something quite important...

Megan said...

I've seen pictures of you. What wrinkles?

But yes (ha!), you have to raise your eyebrows.

90% of the people who read this are going to have no idea what we're talking about. Hello, northerners!