When I asked a friend who’d just gotten dentures if it embarrassed her to buy dental adhesive she said, “Of course not. I’ve been buying it for my husband for years.”

I’ve tried to tell myself to use her line. So when I bought some adult diapers and told myself they were for my late-mother I thought I heard momma laugh. Or maybe it was the sales clerk when she checked out my other purchases: a tube of age defense hand cream, a jar of anti-wrinkle moisturizer face cream, and a bottle of rapid wrinkle repair eye cream. I swear I heard that clerk’s thoughts, “Too late, old lady, you should have tried those 40 years ago, and what on Earth did you get this for?”

The last comment was apparently a reference to my box of charcoal masks, so I told her, “I have geriatric blackheads.”

She didn’t reply.

Usually they don’t.

They just give you The Look.

Trying on a swim suit at my age and weight is embarrassing.

I’ve quit wearing knee high stockings when I do, because the last time I did I was 40ish, and when I looked in the mirror I laughed so loud that two sales clerks came to my rescue.

They thought I was having a heart attack. I guess I was, in a way, but I lied, and told them the bathing suit was for a chubby niece who was just my size.

Even back then they just rolled their eyes.

And gave me The

Look.

You’d think I’d be used to it because I’ve had to buy everything from fleet enemas to hemorrhoid cream in my 76 years. The worst was buying anti-fungal foot cream, and it wasn’t even for me.

It felt strange when I bought a beer at a local convenience store one morning especially when the Baptist preacher was behind me at the checkout counter.

That’s when I explained to him, and the cashier, and others in line, that Linda at work suggested I use beer to tenderize a beef brisket. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bought just one beer.

“I don’t even drink beer,” I told them, and it was the honest to God truth.

They didn’t believe me.

They all just gave me The Look.

Well, one guy laughed his head off.