By Susan Maccarelli of Beyond Your Blog. Originally published on In the Powder Room. Reprinted with permission.
My old lady holes are looking really worn these days.
Not those holes. I’m talking about the holes that hang low and wobble to-and-fro.
I recently hosted a jewelry party (think Tupperware meets Claire’s Boutique). Sample items were on display for the kind of friends who appreciate a good impulse buy in someone else’s living room. A friend and I started chatting about some earrings we liked and how we couldn’t wear them because they were too heavy.
She told me that just recently she’d noticed her ear lobes looking . . . old lady-ish.
PSA: “Old lady lobes begin to appear around age 39. While the progression of OLL can be slowed, it cannot be stopped in its fateful course. Symptoms include lobes that begin to elongate in an effort to join their mate and tie into a knot or tie into a bow. Avoiding heavy earrings and Carol-Burnett-like ear tugging can help prevent early onset OLL.”
As we inspected each other’s lobes, another friend, who is our age but somehow maintains the lobes of a sixteen-year-old, inspected a 2-pound chandelier earring for purchase. We took our conversation elsewhere.
Long-lobe friend had heard about a surgical procedure to address her situation as well as my stretchy earring holes. I promptly Googled and found Dr. Jonathan Hoenig’s website about how surgery can address “…unwanted earlobe changes, including sagging of the earlobes from aging or earrings, stretching or tearing of the ear piercing, thinning of the earlobes, and creases or folds in the earlobes.”
Conversation soon turned to women with way worse lobes than us in an effort to inflate our earlobe egos and convince ourselves out of surgery.
“What about those people with the giant plug things in their ears? Have you ever seen when they take them out? Those lobes are just flapping in the breeze! There is no fixing that.”
“At least we didn’t shove giant bottle caps into our ears. Some of that shit would even make Dr. Hoenig flinch. Yep, Doctor H. would be proud of us.”
My poor husband, who was meandering as far on the outskirts of my jewelry party as possible, was apparently listening because he discreetly told me that one of those hole-plug girls could try on earrings at my party and it would be “like throwing a hot dog down a hallway.”
Later, I convinced myself that I don’t need the surgery . . . yet. They may not be mint condition, and they certainly don’t hold up next to a 20-something’s, but my lobes are acceptable.
When gravity kicks in and my husband accidentally gets a finger stuck in my earring hole as we sleep, I may be calling Dr. H. for a quick fix. And since I had c-sections, I’ll remind my husband that a finger in my old lady hole is better than a hot dog down a hallway.
This post was originally published on In the Powder Room.
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About the Author
Susan Maccarelli is the creator of Beyond Your Blog, a resource site that focuses on helping bloggers and writers successfully submit their writing to websites and anthologies. In order to make sure my fans think I am credible, I occasionally submit very academic original pieces like this one to be published online. If I can help just one blogger…