When Sexiness Frightens the Elderly
I had a co-worker who told me about a time he’d gone to pick his grandmother up from the train station or the airport. I can’t remember which. Where he picked her up from is not the point of the story.
They were driving through a crowd of Black humanity somewhere down on the South End in the summer time. Girls in little shorts and midriff baring tops floated by like sex starved phantoms, and guys with low sagging pants and chest-high libidos gave willing chase. In the throng, a massive truck rolled by and overtook my friend and his elderly passenger. Something unusual was dangling at the bottom of the truck. She adjusted her glasses and shook her head.
“Baby, now WHY would someone go and do something like that?” she asked in that way that only truly disappointed grandmothers can. You know the one I’m talking about: it’s high pitched, drawn out, and burrows its way into your psyche. It’s that voice you hear every time you deceptively reach your hand into the cookie jar.
“I don’t know, grandma,” he admitted. “I don’t know.”
She was looking at truck nuts. I still haven’t figured out what the point of having a pair pf bull balls dangling from the back of one’s vehicle is supposed to be, but I imagine that in our sex driven, narcissistic society, it’s supposed to have something to do with power and – well – sex.
Today I turn 36, and I think I may have officially joined the ranks of the elderly. I see things in the world around me – things that are supposed to be “sexy” – and I find that they frighten and baffle me, just as they did my friend’s grandmother.
For instance, I saw this image in sports news just a few days ago. This picture is part of a spread that Eric Decker and his model wife did for GQ magazine. They are expecting their first child. The journalist who wrote the article extoled the pair for daring to have fun with their first pregnancy.
“What an amazing couple!”
“Look at how much FUN they’re having!”
“His wife looks GREAT.”
That’s not what I saw. All I saw was danger, danger, and yet mo’ danger. Why is he leaning over her with a 100 pound weight in his hand? What if he drops in on her belly? Surely her hemorrhoids must hurt leaning back on that bench like that. And look at her shoes! Those heels are going to give her plantar fasciitis if she’s not careful. Did I see sexy here? Nope. I just see “stupid”.
Same goes for this new budding (and I hope it remains in the ‘budding’ stage) trend that was brought to my attention yesterday. Meggings. Have you heard of them? They are man + jeggings = meggings.
We’ve talked about jeggings here on MOM quite a bit, and as a fat girl, you all know that I am a fan of stretchy pants. They make my life easier. But for some reason, I am unable to come to terms with this new meggings phenomenon. Oh, it’s not that I don’t think there is anything wrong with a man wearing hosiery as day wear. I do believe that there are certain occasions when this is completely necessary…vital in fact. Those situations include being able to leap over buildings in a single bound, dueling the forces of evil in Sherwood Forest, or when one’s job involves copious amounts of power and the frantic cries of “Stick it, stick it!!!” from your equally copiously powdered team mates. Other than that, I don’t think you should be fixing cars or repairing hard drives in metallic man stockings. Again, not sexy! This goes under the file of just really (really) scary. Did you know they will me making them in size XXL soon? *shudder*
So this is what my 36th year looks like huh? Men in stretch pants, carrying murses (man + purse), hopping out of large vehicles with metal testicles dangling at the rear? I’m frightened, y’all. So very frightened…
Are there any other trends out there that I’ve missed? What craziness have you seen in these streets? You might as well go ahead and tell. Surely, nothing tops rainbow colored stretch pant plumber’s crack… or at least I hope not.
Happy Friday, one and all!