Never give up! Never surrender!

A foldy toe.  Of all things.

I didn’t see this one coming.

You never truly expect all the inevitable "aging" crapola that’s coming your way, though, right?  Even though you’ve known all along that some telltale stuff is marching straight at you, two abreast, you can look over, under, sideways, down, and plain old ignore the certainty. 

For example, you know you’re going to wrinkle.  But still, it offends.  Wrinkles scandalize.  They appall.

There’s that OMG! moment when you look and you see and you understand that while you slept, creases crept up from the pillow case and settled onto your face.

Like you always knew they would.

They found their home, their happy home, and they don’t want to move.  Ever again.  Barring surgery of the type that would stretch your face into a Jack Nicholson Joker of a caricature of yourself. 

Nevertheless, you can’t help yearning for what you can no longer have.  It’s gone and there in the mirror is the new, old you.

And those rumpled ruffles didn’t arrange themselves appealingly in the socially desirable and marginally acceptable region set aside for laugh lines.

Oh no.  These are not crinkles that accentuate a twinkling eye.  These are lines and furrows more appropriately assigned to a wheat field.  And the crop is set for harvest.

We all know wrinkles are coming.  But who accepts their arrival?  Who welcomes them as an anticipated tenant?  No one! 

Some liars claim to love and respect them as signs of a live well-lived.  Ha!  I once had a dermatologist call liver spots “wisdom spots.”  Yeesh.

But OK.  What are you going to do?  Better than the alternative, right?  Hahaha. 

And gray hair.  OK, white hair.  Big deal.  I crawled into the bottle years ago on that one.  Denial perfected.

An ache.  A pain.  A spider vein.  Means nothing.  So what if I can’t eat fried food like I did back in the day?  Big deal!

Sleeping through the night?  Any sissy can sleep through the night!  Only the stout of constitution can nod off at midnight, get up at 2:30, 4:30 and again at 6 and still be (mostly) alert and productive every fine day!

But the foldy toe may take me down.

It developed on the golf course.  See?!  I play golf.  Twice a week!  I walk the course too!  Pull my own cart!  I’m young and strong and tough, I tell ya!

Anyway, as I was saying, I was walking up for my second shot.  This is when I usually give myself an “attaboy” for hitting it straight or a stern admonition for shanking it – again. 

But this time, my thoughts were drawn away from the bucolic 4^th fairway to the migration of my little toe.  As though responding to a hypnotic suggestion, it turned unannounced, inched away from its assigned station at the edge of my foot and worked steadily until it was tucked under its upright companions.

Whaaaat?

It didn’t hurt.  It just felt weird.  What are you doing there, Little Toe?  Why would you fold yourself under, thus?  What fear ye?

The toe said nothing and I kept quiet.

Members of my foursome suspected nothing.  They have seen me duff a fairway wood enough times.  They didn’t detect the shift in my sunny disposition.  That 3-putt was par for my course.

The rest of the nine, my mind held silent communion with the toe.  Instead of staying after for a celebratory Anchor Steam, I hustled to CVS and the Dr. Scholl’s aisle – you   know, where the old folks find remedies for foldy toes.

And there, nestled among the corn plasters and the arch supports, next to Odor-X and Freeze Away, I found these little gel cushion thingies that fit between and force errant toes to face the future head on, like the rest of us. 

So hooray. 

But how can one recover from the demoralizing knowledge that she’s shopping on the aisle right around the corner from the Ensure and down the way from the All New Silhouette Depends?

Stubbornness, that’s how.  Just because an apple falls one hundred times out of a hundred does not mean it will fall again on the hundred and first.

I will not surrender!  Oh no!  Not to a foldy toe!  

You talkin' to me?!

OK.  I’m thinking some sensitivity training is in order.

You know what I mean – that sort of interminable, eye-rolling in-service whereby here-to-fore know-it-alls learn that they don’t know so much after all.  What used to be OK, is now taboo.  What was once funny ain’t funny no more.

I’m talking about all you non-boomers.  Yeah, you.  All you “yes ma’am”-ers and “can I help you to the car?” people who think you’re immune to the calendar and not subject to the clock. 

What?  Do I sound defensive?  Well too, too bad!  Too bad I say!

It appears you must listen to me, not only because, yes, I am OLDER than you are, but also because you are outnumbered by me and my geriatric friends.  And…we have all the money!  Ha!

Turns out, according to the Wall Street Journal, in an article titled, “How to Market to an Aging Boomer: Flattery, Subterfuge and Euphemism,” some forward-thinking mercenary types have already begun the process of age-ifying themselves and their businesses.  And they’ve done it on the down low.

That’s right.  “Companies are making typefaces larger, lowering store shelves to make them more accessible and avoiding yellows and blues in packaging—two colors that don’t appear as sharply distinct to older eyes

And here’s the kicker:  They’re doing so surreptitiously!

Hahahaha!  I love it!  They’re afraid of offending us!  We’ve got ‘em on the run.

The visual of this phenomenon is classic:  An army of “older adults,” led by Madge, or Clint Eastwood, or Statler & Waldorf (those crabby old-men Muppets who hate everything), or wait!  I know!  Led by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards!  Oh!  My God!

Keith with his corpse-like countenance, cigarette dangling and Mick, gyrating in leather pants and a sequined jacket with no shirt underneath.  Coming at ya, singing “I can’t get no satisfaction!”  No!  “Please allow me to introduce myself; I’m a man of wealth and fame!”  That would run the fear of the wrath of the moldering up the backs of those smart-alecky “younger adults.”

Here we come, a horde of “golden agers” with bulging wallets sweeping down onto the plains occupied by smug and unsuspecting adolescent types who are so flippin’ sure of everything.

The good news is, of course, that everybody likes larger typeface.  Guess what?  It’s pleasant to read without squinting. 

And how lovely that Sherwin-Williams and other retailers have quietly adapted to aging customers, even if they just did it for the money.  

CVS Caremark Corp. retrofitted its stores with carpeting to reduce slipping.  They lowered shelves from 72 inches to 60 inches and opted for more natural light in stores to improve visibility.  They eliminated curbs from store entrances and painted existing curbs yellow to heighten awareness.

Get this:  Some stores positioned magnifying glasses in aisles that carry products that use lots of fine print, like household cleaners, hair color and cold medicine.  Reading glasses are getting snazzier, too, now that the chain updates styles more frequently.

They snuck all that stuff right by us unsuspecting geezers!  It’s a good thing too, because we are a touchy bunch.  Don’t be reminding us that we’re getting on!

I say go ahead and flatter me.  Neither one of us is fooled.  I’m getting older and so are you.  But I appreciate the niceties of your telling me that 60 isn’t 60 and wrinkly is not really wrinkly at all.  These creases are not “age lines,” or “maturity tracks.”  They are “expression lines.”  Nice!

That’s right.  Bring on the euphemisms!  Tell me I’m healthy and active and full of life.  I know I am, and if you’re pretending, that’s OK.

Go ahead ADT; market your medical-alert system to us codgers as “Companion Services.”  Sweet.

Kimberly-Clark Corp.’s Depends, the “adult diapers” of the past, have had a makeover in new TV ads with smiling 50 year old actors: “Looks and fits like underwear.  Protects like nothing else.”  So much to look forward to!.

Don’t forget – 76 million boomers account for about half of total U.S. consumer spending.  With longer life expectancy than previous seniors, we are projected to spend an additional $50 billion by the end of the decade.

So talk nice to us.

It’s worth it, right?  For both of us.