Admission
We’ve been having some long overdue home maintenance/repairs done the past couple weeks — exterior painting last week, fence and gate repair this week. The house finally has most of its curb appeal restored, so we don’t have to swallow our pride with any more “Just a friendly reminder” letters from our usually inattentive, highly over-funded homeowner’s association. (Maybe it’s just me, but usually a “friendly reminder” comes off sounding about as genuine and helpful as people who start a conversation with, “I’m not trying to be rude, but…”)
Anyway, the young man working on our fence has been doing a terrific job, although we anticipated as much; someone we trust recommended him as a budding young businessman who would likely be “hungry” for the work. He couldn’t be more than 20 years old, if that. He’s well-mannered, and until today I was able to pretend I’m not becoming a dirty old woman. You see, just before I left to run errands, I rounded the corner out of the garage to let him know I’d be out for a bit and needed to close the garage door. I had to stop dead in my tracks. Why? He already had a sunburned face and neck from yesterday, so how was I to know he’d strip his shirt off? 
He couldn’t be more lean and lanky — Lance Armstrong has more meat on him after the Tour de France than this young man does — and yet I caught myself thinking, “Whoa! Not bad!”
His girlfriend/fiancee stopped by yesterday to deliver him lunch. She looks 16. Okay, maybe 17.
Dirty old woman, I tell you!
MommaCat said,
May 5, 2006 @ 2:59 pm
Hehe! You’ve got a lot of years to go before you qualify for “dirty old women” status, but I can definitely identify with the Appreciation Syndrome!!! (My own label for the phenomenon.)
IMHO:
_ As married women, we try to consult the mirror and the weight scale and do what we can to negate the passsage of time. (Sometimes, that “passage” seems to have taken place while it was using golf shoes with cleats!)
- Married men seem to have the ability to ignore the two (especially the weight scale) and relax into the security and comfort of being married.
Don’t get me wrong - I realize there are many women who simply quit caring about how they look once they’re married:-) In some ways, I suppose I even belong in that catagory. Before I retired, his first ’sighting’ in the evening was likely to be me in a skirt & blouse, dress or business-casual pants outfit. Now, it’s likely to be shorts & t-shirt! I haven’t quit caring, but “dressing up/refreshing the make-up/greeting husband with a martini” is just too much like the advice given to my mother and grandmother!
Long live young, slender repairmen on a hot day!!!!!!