One would think living in the South all my life would have spared me somewhat from the great southward migration, but no. I find myself an unwilling and distraught prisoner in this ever-increasing saggy-baggy, wrinkled wash and wear costume I call my body. When you grow up a bit overweight as I did, you are accustomed to cellulite and floppy “places” where other young things have tight buns and thighs and firm, bouncy pert “blossoms” and yet, when I was younger, everything had a place and it was all in its place, if you follow my drift . . . My mother told me the secret to success for the ample, “full-figured” Jane Russell-type woman was in the proper foundation garments and I believed her, mostly . . . She seemed to do all right after all, and she was more ample than I. I still turned my share of heads with my plenteous curves and a round, firm, fully-packed physique, soft and supple in all the right places . . . no sharp, jutting bones to discomfort nuzzling, cuddling sweethearts; only an opulent plushness which beckoned to some—enough of them to make it all seem worthwhile. I thought it would last forever . . . well, all right; I knew it wouldn’t last forever, but . . . seems just about the time I learned what to do with it and how to do it best, the migration started. Subtle things at first . . . I noticed one day the once firm-ish gelatinous deposits on my hips seemed to have come un-jelled and had a bit more jiggle, which suddenly made fast dancing feel more like getting caught in the spin cycle of an unbalanced wash load than anything else. Whoa, slow that thing down, girl! You’re gonna throw out a gear or something. The problem progressed from there in a steady flow, becoming less subtle and accelerating as the years passed, each one a bit faster than the last until . . . I woke up one morning and rolled over in the bed to find myself caught in a tug-of-war with the rest of . . . myself . . . part of me rolled while the rest of me lagged behind, something like a slow-motion movie of a taffy pull gone bad. I watched in stricken horror as my once almost-firm derriere lazed behind in a surreal semi-configuration of writhing flesh in a pathetic attempt to reunite itself with the rest of my body. I thought at first I was having some strange nightmare until that lousy lump of lazy buttocks snapped into place so hard it almost threw me out of the bed. That was when I knew for sure, not only had it caught up with me, but the years were closing in on me as well. What could I do? How could I face it—the shame, the degradation, the gravitational pull of the opposing planets? What was to become of me? It was about that time I paused too long to look in the mirror one day and noticed my gray hairs had multiplied . . . um . . . tripled . . . okay they had exploded overnight, like a white plague . . . from worrying about my sagging rear, no doubt . . . I got my ample self in hand and promptly went to the store, bought a box of natural hair dye and smeared it all over those pesky little white hairs. I wasn’t going to take this aging thing lying down. No sir! Not me. I was going to fight it tooth and nail and never give up, never say die and . . . Ohmygoodnessgraciousakesalive what in the world had I done? I couldn’t believe my eyes as I stood there looking at my hair. I dug the box out of the trash and peered at it with marked suspicion. Yes, it said the color was supposed to be dark auburn, but they must have been joking. My hair was bright, flaming flamingo fuchsia! So there I stood transfixed, appalled by my new hair color, looking like an over-the-hill biker’s moll, fuchsia hair and a backside stricken by Lazy-A syndrome, when I made another big mistake. I looked too closely at the face staring back at me from the mirror and noticed all the craters, fissures and brown spots . . . I read years ago frowning will give you wrinkles, so I always tried not to frown too much. Nowhere did I read if you smile you will still get wrinkles; they are just shaped a little differently. Wrinkles! Me? Why? Is this what aging is all about? Well, I have news for you; I don’t like it, not one little bit, but I don’t intend to let it get me down. My solution? Simple. Try not to get too close to mirrors and never, under any circumstances, dye your semi-white hair dark auburn, no matter how natural that dye says it is. Most important, never, ever roll over too fast when you wake in the morning and if you do, for heaven’s sake don’t look behind you!