Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Crinkly? Really?



Carolyn J. Rose

Recently Mike and I were privileged to spend 24 hours with our five-year-old friend Tristan Stone.

That’s when we discovered that we’re crinkly.

Like most kids, Tristan sometimes seems older and sometimes younger than his age. He sleeps with a stuffed lamb and needs a little help brushing his teeth. Later he reminds Mike to wash his hands and tells us we should drink plenty of fluids before we go to the pool.

That’s where we found out we’re crinkly.

Tristan informed us he could swim by himself all over the pool. Visualizing his parents drawing and quartering me if anything happened, I made the case for staying in the shallow end. I made another case for one of us being by his side at all times, claiming the lifeguards would throw us out if we weren’t.

Tristan agreed, but told me he wouldn’t need me because he was a better swimmer. “I’m young and like a monkey and my skin is smooth. You might sink because you’re all crinkly.”

“Crinkly?”

“Yeah.” He pointed. “Especially around your eyes.”

I refrained from the snappy comebacks I employed when I was a kid, world-class insults like: “Your mother wears combat boots.” or “Your father voted for Nixon.” I also refrained from sticking out my tongue because that would only create more crinkles.

After all, Tristan was just stating the obvious. Like it or not, I’m 67. And I’m crinkly.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Carolyn,

    "Out Of The Mouths Of Babes" eh! Why are young children so totally brutal and honest, yet we learn to lie so sweetly and consummately in later life :)

    We are both 56, soon to be 57, with only one day between our birthdays and I have to admit that if hubbie looks a little wrinkly and crinkly around the edges to me, then I guess he feels the same way about me!

    Neither of us like it however, when our nieces and nephews, who are now almost all grown up themselves, look at us as though we are just one of the oldies in the corner and start treating us as we treat our own parents, all in their 80s!

    We are beginning to feel very marginalised by this special treatment and if one of them says "Ah! Bless" once more, I shall scream. I'm not sure whether they consider it to be a term of endearment or whether they are simply being patronising - I have my own opinion!

    Hope you are both well and keeping warm in this cold weather :) LOL

    Yvonne

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