Last week, me and the Women Who Run With the Moose, Celeste, Rita, Betty, Dot and Shirley, got together for our girls night. Betty was hosting. She was serving those little miniature cherry cheesecakes. You make ‘em in a muffin tin with a vanilla wafer on bottom. You ever had them? They’re wicked good!
Dottie had just been in for a physical. “The whole “lube, oil, and filter,” as Shirley calls it.
“God, don’t they ask you a lot of questions.” Dot says. “How much caffeine am I drinking? What am I doing to de-stress? How am I sleeping? How much do I poop and when?”
“Did they ask how often you and Tommy do the deed?”
“Yup.”
“What’d you tell her, Dottie?” I tease.
“I said, ‘About average for a couple that’s been together nearly fifty years: New Year’s Eve, Tommy’s birthday, Fourth of July and Veteran’s Day.’”
“Not Arbor Day?”
“Nope, easier to just plant a tree!”
Rita chimes in, “Know what question I hate? Date of your last period.”
“I know!” I say. “How am I supposed to remember that?”
“Don’t they have it in their files some place?” Shirley adds.
“After a certain age, they should just stop asking you that question.”
“Should,” I says, “but they probably won’t. We’ll be checking into the Memory Unit down to Mahoosuc Green, and they’ll still be asking us the date of our last period.”
“Right! And at that point, we’ll be lucky if we remember our own names!”
“I know,” Betty says, “we should get senior tattoos. Date of our last period tattooed on our arm. ‘Let me check,’ you say. Then you roll up the sleeve of your cardigan and voila, there it is!”
“Why stop there?” says Celeste. “Father’s middle name.”
“Mother’s maiden name,” Shirley adds. “Last four digits of your social?”
“I know,” Rita jumps in, “I’ll have that tattooed upside down on my tummy, so only I can read it. Pin number?”
“I’m gonna need a mirror for that one”, I says, “because it’s written backwards on my butt!”
God don’t we laugh!
That’s it for now. Catch you on the flipside!
Hear Ida Tell It: Senior Tattoos
Upcoming Shows
March 28: Once We Were Four, New Hampshire Theatre Project, 4:00pm, Portsmouth, NH*
April 26: Down to the A&P, The Dance Hall, 2:00pm, Kittery, ME
*performed as Susan