You say vain like it's a bad thing.

My hair is naturally brown. Well at least it used to be. I've worked tirelessly over the last twenty years to make sure I have no idea what my actual hair color is. I've spent so much money on various hair colors throughout my adult life, I would have probably come out cheaper hiring a mad scientist to develop blonde hair plugs for women from the hide of young goats. As far as I'm concerned, Loreal is French for "Sherri, your hair is ugly".

I started to color my hair when I was eighteen. Times were simpler then and I was a timid home colorist. Just a few little highlights here and there and I was happy. Nothing too drastic for me.

After I finally landed a husband... this will be Hubby #1 for those of you keeping score at home... I noticed something remarkable about his behavior. Whenever a female with blonde hair was anywhere in the vicinity, he would practically break his neck to get a closer look at her. I mean he went stupid at the mere hint of blonde hair. Naturally I put two and two together and decided that in order to keep his eye from wandering, I simply needed to be blonde.

Blonde in a bottle equals faithful husband. I was too smart.

It so happens that about the time I had made the big decision to go blonde, we were heading out to visit my Mother who by this time had moved to Oklahoma. We were going to be there for a few days and then it was on to a big softball tournament in Kentucky in which hubby would be playing short for The Tankers. There were always lots of softball groupies sniffing around these Army softball tournaments, so I knew I had to act fast. I needed to be blonde and fabulous in order to counteract their wiley ways.

Now, my mother is me to the tenth power. That is to say, if you ever saw me and thought I was too crazy, wore too much make-up or my hair was too big, you would hardly be able to take her in. She is Dolly Parton without the boobs.

When I was only five years old, Mother decided to go to beauty school. I remember her big, black case filled with all sorts of beauty creating devices. No woman was ever more suited for the profession than Sybil. However, no sooner had the instructors covered what scissors were for than my Mother dropped out.

We don't discuss the beauty school incident in our family, so I have no idea why she left. The important thing is my Mother was a true to life beauty school drop out who never let the fact that she didn't finish stop her from practicing random acts of beauty on her young and defenseless daughter.

Although there were countless emotionally scarring hair incidents, by far the most frightening of them all happened when mother had sewn for me a lovely, one of a kind outfit for school. I should probably mention here that Mother's skill with a sewing machine ran a close second to her skill with perm rods. Mother often had just enough knowledge in any given subject to be dangerous.

Anyway, this stunning creation featured a halter top made out of a multi-colored terry cloth kitchen dish towel. Seriously. I couldn't make that up. Basically, she had folded it into the shape of a triangle, hemmed the edges and attached fabric ties at the top and bottom. In effect, it was kitchen camo. When I stood near the sink, you couldn't see me.

She was so proud of her handi-work, she couldn't possibly let me go to school the next day with hair that didn't properly accentuate the sporty new duds. So, she washed my long, brown hair and sat me down on the floor in front of her. Painstakingly she sectioned off tiny pieces of hair, wound them tightly around her index finger and then bobby pinned them to my head. There must have been hundreds of the itsey-bitsey coils of hair and my head itched so much that night I barely slept a wink.

The next morning I remember sitting at her feet again while she commenced the lengthy process of taking them out. One by one the bobby pins fell at my side until the pile was at least 6 inches high.

"Oh, honey!" my Mother cried. "Your hair is beautiful! Come look in the mirror!"

When I saw my reflection staring back at me, I burst into tears. I looked like Little Orphan Annie after a night of doing tequila shots and sailors. And to top it all off, I was wearing a dish towel. Oh, the humanity.

Now you would think that a memory like that might discourage me from ever uttering the following words to my mother when we arrived for our short visit to Oklahoma.

"Do you think you could make my hair blonde?"

Mother was so excited, she nearly broke her neck getting us out the door to the nearest beauty supply shop.

She bought bottles and combs and chemicals, the entire time gushing about how unbelievably beautiful I was going to be. She was so convincing, I was pretty sure this was the single smartest decision I had ever made.

The night before we left for Kentucky, mother began the process of my transformation from dull to fabulous. She was in her element. Don't worry, she'd remind me again and again. She had gone to beauty school afterall.

After what seemed like hours, she was finished. It was already dark outside. All that was left to do was to blow-dry my golden locks and wait for the compliments.

As I stood in front of the mirror in her dimly lit bathroom, I was a little shocked. It was quite a drastic change. I was blonde. Very, very blonde.

"What do you think?" I asked my family.

"Well, it'll just take a little getting used to," Hubby said.

"You need to put on more make-up," my mother said.
(That was Mother's answer to all life's problems. More make-up.)

I went to bed feeling like a new woman and I couldn't wait to get to Ft. Knox to show off my inner goddess. As was our custom when we traveled, we woke up while it was still dark and got on the road. I woke up extra early so I would have time to style my new hair and put on the turquoise shirt my mother gave me to show off my blondeness.

It was only after we'd been driving awhile that the sun finally came up. As it got lighter outside, I began to notice that other travelers on the interstate were not only looking my way, they were absolutely staring! They were obviously so taken with my Marilyn Monroe like beauty, they could barely keep their eyes on the road. I was Sherri, queen of the beautiful.

I couldn't take it any more. I asked my husband to pull over so that I too could see how amazing I looked. We whipped into a McDonald's to grab a little breakfast and give me some alone time with a mirror. When I walked in the front door, all eyes were on me. I walked to the bathroom like a homecoming queen in a parade. Work it, baby.

What I saw when I stepped in front of that mirror haunts me to this day. I wish I could accurately describe the color of my hair for you. Let's just say if there were a color called Nuclear Lemon, that might come close. In fact, my neon, glowing hair was so bright it was emitting the faint hum of a power plant.
Add to that the stunning oh-so-trailer-park turquoise shirt I was wearing and you can see that it in fact was not my beauty that was garnering the attention.

Sybil, the beauty school drop out strikes again.

The things we do for love.

It's funny how things you haven't thought about in years suddenly and unexpectedly show up in your thoughts.

Yesterday, while driving back from a field trip with my son's fourth grade class, I remembered a night some twenty-two years ago that I'm sure I had managed to block out of my conscious mind due to the sheer level of embarrassment it caused. All these years later, I can finally laugh at the memory. At least I think I can.

I was eighteen-years-old and freshly dumped by the man I thought would be my husband. My Grandmother had passed away and for the first time in two years, I was between boyfriends. I was depressed and on the prowl for a replacement model (fiance, not Grandmother) when I decided to visit my Mother in Ft. Knox, Kentucky.

Ft. Knox is an army base and as such, it is always teeming with young, disciplined, lonely men. Any female with most of her teeth can find a man on a military base. I was gonna get me one.

In 1982, eighteen was old enough to be granted access to the clubs on post as well as old enough to drink... as long as it was only beer or wine. The only catch was you had to have an active duty military member agree to sign you into the club. My step-father was such a person. I was all set to go to the NCO club (non-commissioned officers) that Friday night to hunt for a husband.

I spent the entire day in preparation. In much the same way you wash, wax and detail a car before you try to sell it, I was making sure my chassis was in mint condition.

I carefully applied vampire red, insanely long Lee Press On Nails. Rather than take any chance one might pop off and leave me claw challenged, I decided to go one better than the little sticky tabs that come in the package. I grabbed a bottle of Super Glue... the same kind that used to lift Volkswagens over a man's head in commercials. If it was tough enough to suspend automobiles in mid-air, surely it could keep my nails in place.

I twisted open a brand new tube of Coppertone QT (instant tan stuff) and covered my entire body. I knew that nothing attracts a man like warm, healthy, bright orange glow. I couldn't reach the backs of my shoulders, but I figured it would be dark in the club and men wouldn't be interested in the backs of my shoulders anyway.

I curled and teased my long, brown hair for at least two hours in order to achieve heights and widths that would leave any 1972 country music diva envious. Not yet satisfied with the large, winged helmet that was my coif, I bent over at the waist... as was customary in my daily hair-fixing ritual, and flipped my gigantic head of hair upside down so as to achieve maximum hair volume. I then aimed my industrial sized bottle of Final Net Ultra Hold hair spray and coated the under side of my hair.

When I could touch my hair without having my fingers get stuck in it, or when I was nearly ready to pass out, whichever came first, I stood straight again and started the Final Net process on the rest of my hair.

It was the epitome of big hair. And, under no circumstances or weather conditions was it ever, ever going to move. The only thing that could penetrate my giant mass of brown locks was water and I was praying to the rain gods that the skies remained clear. I knew if even the slightest amount of water touched my masterpiece, my head would turn into a giant mass of chewing gum.

Oh.. I almost forgot to mention the stunning white and gold head band I was wearing across my forehead. Olivia Newton-John had nothing on me. I was simply fabulous and totally ready to get physical.

I pulled on a lime green and orange striped shirt with spaghetti straps and a short lime green skirt that had little metal snaps on the pockets. I wanted to show a lot of skin in order to accentuate my brand new tan-from-a-bottle.

When we arrived at the club, I was reminding myself that above all else, I needed to look cool. I certainly looked like an attractive completely adult woman capable of bearing healthy children and cooking wonderful meals. Now I needed to act the part.

And how better to say to the world, "I am an adult" than to drink to excess and smoke cigarettes? That's what I needed to do. Smoke and drink. My stunning beauty would grab 'em, smoking and drinking would seal the deal.

I went to a cigarette machine (they still had such things in 1983) and picked the pack that I thought most reflected my femininity. Virginina Slims, what else? I found a table near the stage where a very loud band was playing and tried to act as if I sat in bars every night.

The waitress showed up and asked me what I wanted to drink. This was a toughie. I couldn't just order beer or wine... even though the law said that was all I could drink. Sophisticated women like me drank mixed drinks. The only mixed drink for which I could recall a name was 7 & 7 so that's what I ordered. I had no clue what it was, but it sounded like a womanly drink to me.

As I waited for my froo-froo drink to arrive, I noticed that the band featured a very, very hot drummer. He was beautiful. He had long, black hair, dark skin and coal black eyes. I loved him immediately and imagined how precious our dark haired children would be. I began trying to make eye contact.

I don't know if it was my high hair, my vampire nails or the striking contrast of my burnt orange skin against my lime green outfit, but he couldn't take his eyes off me. He'd smile and wink and I'd act as if I was way too cool to notice, even though my heart was about to beat out of my chest.

When the band took a break, he made his way to my table and ordered a shot of tequila with a beer back. What a grown-up, manly thing to order! I didn't know what a beer back was, but I found it terribly exciting that the father of my children did.

He told me I was beautiful and wanted to know if I'd like to go with him to another bar when he was through with this gig. How much did I love the fact that he used words like "gig"!!! It was going to be so much fun being married to a drummer.

His break was almost over, when I realized that I had one bit of ammunition I had not yet used. I hadn't smoked in front of him! Silly girl! He needed to see me smoke in order to get the full effect.

I should probably mention here that the only times I had smoked and actually inhaled prior to this moment, I had puked for hours. I figured that as long as I didn't inhale, I'd avoid the never attractive but totally inevitable vomiting. I was so smart. It's no wonder he wanted me.

Trying to open the pack with my nails was like handing it to Edward Scissorhands, but I managed to finally get it open and extract one long, thin cigarette. Now I just had to get it in my mouth and get it lit. I was home free.

I picked up the lighter and I noticed that the cigarette felt a little sticky in my hands. Apparently I had not completely gotten all the hair spray off my fingers.

I clicked the lighter once. Nothing. I clicked it again. Nothing.

When I clicked it the third time I heard a sound not unlike the sound you hear when you turn on a gas stove. WHOOSH!

Two of my beautiful, red nails were fully engulfed. I was literally on fire.

Had I been at home and had my fingers burst into flames, I might have considered stop, drop and roll. But, ever the cool-headed adult, I didn't want to scare off the love of my life by acting like this was a big deal.

I did what any logical person would do when a part of their body is on fire. I held my hand close to my face and gently blew. What I failed to take into consideration was the very same hair spray that was coating my artificial nails making them as flammable as a BBQ grill was all over my head. That dawned on me about the time my bangs started to smoke.

It was at that moment that cool went right out the window. (As if it hadn't left the building already.) I stuck my flaming hand in my 7 & 7 while frantically beating my forehead with the other one. The fire was finally extinguished.

So what does one do after having put out a blaze on one's person in a situation like this?

While I sat their smoldering and smelling of burnt hair and fake nails with my hand soaking in my drink glass, I said, "So, what time do you think you'll be done here?"

Believe it or not, this guy wasn't my first husband either.

Top ten reasons I get married.

So I said I'd tell you why I married my first husband and then I went off about my Grandmother. That's not as off topic as it might sound.

The truth is, I married my first husband soon after my Maw-Maw died and my slimy fiance dumped me. It doesn't take someone with Dr. in front of their name to put that one together. I was a lonely, afraid child in need of some direction. He was a Drill Sergeant with the United States Army and seven years my senior. He had plenty of direction.

I promised you I'd lay out the top ten reasons I got married and so I will. They spell out why I got married the first time and pretty much every time after that. If they serve no other purpose but to become a checklist of sorts spelling out why a person should not get married, then so be it. If you're thinking of getting hitched, it might be a smart thing just to run down the list. If you find some of your own reasons for saying yes to a proposal (or delivering a proposal) listed here, you might want to think like the Brady Bill and give yourself a little cooling off time.

The Big List

10. Every body else was doing it. Even though I was only nineteen when I married, you have to remember that I had that small town southern thing happening. I was well on my way to being a spinster.

9. I was tired of dating. When you start dating so young that you have to bring a booster seat along, you've covered a lot of ground by the time you're nineteen.

8. I didn't know what to do with my life. It was either get married or go to work in a hot factory. I thought I was way too cute to sweat.

7. He had a sweet car. Yeah... I'm especially proud of this one. In my teenaged mind, cool car equaled security. If he could afford a Mustang, he could surely afford me.

6. I didn't want to live at home any more. It never even crossed my mind that living with my parents was an option. I would have rather eaten dirt than moved back in with either of them. As it turns out, I nearly got my dirt-eating wish more than once.

5. I wanted to play house. That's about all I knew how to do. I envisioned hubby going off to work with a smile while I stayed at home and gave birth to 2.5 strikingly beautiful and well-behaved children. That is officially known as
Doris Day re-run syndrome.

4. I had no idea I could create my own destiny. Not once in four years of high school did anyone explain Pell Grants to me, nor did they ever have a conversation with me about how to get into college. I didn't even understand how a person enrolled in college. Way to go guidance counselors.

3. The guy asking always said, "You're beautiful and smart and funny". Magic words to me. Say that to me and I didn't need to hear much of anything else. I still have a problem in that area. I'm afraid if the check out boy at my grocery store ever says it to me, I'll wind up being Mrs. Check Out Boy and together we'll have Check Out children.

2. My self-esteem was in the toilet. Gee... you think?

And the number one reason I have been married more than once.......

It would be impolite to say no.

There you have it.

You might want to know the answer to the $64.00 question. Why in the world would a Southern Baptist girl that has known Jesus since she was eight-years-old keep getting divorced???

Here's the short answer:
I kept marrying men for the wrong reasons.

I seriously amaze myself. I'm an absolute psychiatric genius.

Why I got married: The rest of the story...

After hearing all about Mr. Suave and how I reluctantly gave up my virginity, you've probably concluded that he was my first husband.

Thank you for playing our game, but you're wrong.

Believe it or not, apparently he didn't really mean it when he told me he wanted to marry me! He only told me that so that I would have sex with him. I'll bet you never saw that coming. Well, I didn't see it coming anyway. I was eighteen and no longer a virgin. I was certain I was damaged goods that no decent man would ever want and I didn't know what to do next.

At eighteen I was living with my single favorite person in the whole world. My Grandma Rosie. Maw-Maw, as I always called her, had been my favorite person since I was old enough to realize I had a favorite person. She made me feel like I was her favorite person, too. Every little girl should be so lucky as to have a Maw-Maw Rosie.

Maw-Maw was diagnosed with cancer when I was seventeen and in December, when I was eighteen years old and she and Paw-Paw were just days away from their 50th wedding anniversary, she went to be with Jesus.

She had been dying each day for the ten months since her diagnosis. The evil known as cancer had first been found in her breast and lymph nodes and then very quickly it crept into every part of her little 5'3" body. By December 10th 1982, the last day she was with us here in this life, it owned her physical body.

On December 9th, my Mother... Maw-Maw's daughter, had come home to North Carolina from Kentucky to say good-bye. That night, for the first time since Maw-Maw had been in the hospital, Paw-Paw and I had accepted some church member's offer to sit with her so we could go home for the night and visit with Mother. We figured we'd get some sleep and be right back at the hospital the next morning.

Paw-Paw woke up very early, as was always his custom, and went straight to Maw-Maw's bed side. I was awakened that morning by the phone ringing.

"Sherri, Grandma has told everybody that she is going home today." My Paw-Paw's voice sounded shaky, like he was going to cry at any moment.

"Coming home? Today?" I said.

"Not coming home. Going home. She says today she is going home to be with Jesus." Paw-Paw broke down.

I was in shock. I was angry. I was terrified.

"She is not!" I said. "It's the medicine. She's drugged out of her mind and she doesn't know what she is saying." Maw-Maw had not been conscious in several days. She just slept and moaned.

"Sherri, she woke up this morning and she was in her right mind. She told the preacher and all the ladies from the church that were there that today is the day she is going home to be with Jesus."

I hung up the phone, told my Mother and flew around the house to get ready for the hospital. I had no idea what I was going to find.

By the time I got there, a line of sorts had formed outside Maw-Maw's room. It seems she had asked to see certain people and one by one they would enter her room. She said to them whatever it was she needed to say and then told them good-bye.

By the time it was my turn, she was drifting away. Everyone always knew I was Maw-Maw's favorite, but there were no words of good-bye for me. There was no final wisdom she felt compelled to offer the young woman that had been more like a daughter than a granddaughter. She simply lay quietly and occasionally flicked the ashes of an imaginary cigarette.

I sat by her bedside for hours hoping she had said what she did about going to be with Jesus as a result of morpheine. I wondered what my life would be like without this woman. Who would love me in spite of me? Who would think I was the prettiest girl in the whole world? Who would laugh at all my jokes, bake my favorite pies and gently rub my forehead when I was sick? She was the one that lay teetering between this world and the next and all I could think about was how it would affect me.

Nurses and relatives shuffled in and out of her room that afternoon speaking in hushed tones and patting my back. "Bless her heart," they would whisper.
"I wish the Lord would just take her." I wished no such thing.

At roughly 8:00 p.m., the preacher and one of my aunts began trying to gently persuade me that I needed to say good-bye. "She is staying here because of you," they said. "Tell her it's ok for her to go so that she can leave this painful place."

I finally understood what I had not allowed myself to in the ten months since her diagnosis. She was going to die. The love of my life was going to leave me.

"Maw-Maw," I said softly into her ear. "I love you. I'll see you in Heaven. It's ok. You can go now."

Then we all held hands in a circle in her room and the preacher prayed and gave thanks for the life that she lived and asked that He send angels to usher her into Heaven. Only after I made my aunt and uncle promise me that they would not leave her alone after she passed until the funeral home came to get her, I walked out of her room. As soon as the door closed behind me, my knees buckled and I fell to the floor in a heap.

I had intended not to fall asleep. Somehow I thought I would be able to feel it when her spirit departed this plane. It was only after I was startled by a knock at the front door that I realized I had drifted off. I knew what that knock meant.

I walked to the door, pulled back the curtain and saw my aunt and uncle, our pastor and my fiance standing on the porch. For a second, I thought about not opening the door. Maybe I could make it go away. Maybe they'd all go home and Maw-Maw wouldn't be dead.

"We stayed with her, Honey," said my Aunt. "She went very peacefully."

My uncle, Maw-Maw's son went into my Paw-Paw's room to give him the news. Within a minute I heard Paw-Paw's yell across the house, "My baby's in Heaven."

We buried Maw-Maw on December 13th, 1982. Within two weeks, the man I thought I would marry dumped me.

I've been married more than once.

There. I said it.

Right now you're wondering how many times. Well, suffice it to say if I get married again the state is going to take away my amateur status. I'll have to go pro.

This past week my Father asked me for the very first time in low these many years, why I got married the first time, much less the times after that. I don't think anyone has ever asked me that question before.

The answer to that would require some thought for sure, but since I've really only been busy plucking and covering gray hairs of late, I figured now was as good a time as any to finally figure that out.

First of all, you should know I grew up a good Southern Baptist girl. I began dating very early (thirteen), but that was not unusual for girls my age in the south. In fact, when I was a sophomore I came to school one morning to find that one of the best looking guys I knew..who had graduated only the year before... had married a freshman. She was thirteen years old. She showed up in class wearing a wedding set on her Mrs. finger big enough to choke a horse and a roach clip in her hair. She was nothing if not classy.

I dated different kinds of young men, but they all had one thing in common. They were old. Not one or two years older. They were either in their final two years of college or working in some sort of supervisory capacity in a local manufacturing plant. If their class ring wasn't dated 1979 at minimum, it simply wouldn't do. I'm sure Freud would have a lot to say about that.

Even though I dated guys old enough to be called men, not one of them managed to penetrate my invisible cloak of chastity and get to any base I might have possessed. If they tried anything other than to kiss me, they were going to suffer not only the humiliation of having their hand firmly moved but they were likely to get a lecture as well. I'd made up my mind I was never going to have sex and there was not one thing they could do to persuade me otherwise. Sex was icky, it was a sin and I was pretty sure it would hurt something awful

My younger sisters (step-sisters...although we never use that term) did not share my fear of the dirty deed. Both dropped out of high school and were married by the time they were seventeen. My step-mother had to sign a permission slip for each of them. At my baby sister Leslie's wedding reception, (she was sixteen) a lovely old hag patted my hand gently and whispered just loud enough for everyone in the entire room to hear, "Don't worry, Honey. I'm sure you'll find someone to marry." I was seventeen. Who was I anyway? Ellie Mae Clampett?

Around that time I had been dating a guy that was determined to find a way to unlock the chastity belt. I'm betting he studied all the other guys, thought about their approaches and ultimate failures and came up with the single most perfect getting-a-southern-virgin-to-give-in-plan ever devised.

He told me he wanted to marry me.

And there it was. Those simple, lying, little words were the master key to the chastity belt guys had been trying to unlock since I was thirteen.

He was good, this guy. He didn't just say it. He gave me a ring. A ring I later found out had belonged to the girl friend before me, but a ring nonetheless. I had no choice. I had to put out now.

To say the thought terrified me is the understatement of the eighties. I was petrified. I didn't want that "thing" near me and I held out as long as I could. I made up excuses... some of the same ones that had worked so well in freshman year gym class. Mention ovaries and cysts and periods to a man and you're usually home free. That is, unless he is a horny college junior. Then no amount of mysterious woman stuff will dissuade him.

It was prom night, 1981. I was wearing a long, white, lacy dress I had bought for $99.00 with the money I made as a waitress at Shoney's. I had so much baby's breath in my french-twisted hair I could have roamed free among the wild life in spring fields and never been spotted. I wore tiny little satin ballet slippers dyed white to match my dress. I was just way too foxy for my own good. You can see why he wanted me so badly.

He was wearing a black tux with shiny shoes and a red rose on his lapel and he and my best friend's date stood at the top of the stairs of her house and sang, "New York, New York". As soon as he uttered the words, "Start spreading the news..." I knew he was going to usher me into womanhood sometime that night. I mean come on. Frank Sinatra. I never had a chance.

We went to a swanky restaurant about two hours from home and my friend Kaye and I thought we were oh so clever because we signed the guest register as Mr. and Mrs. blah-blah. When we arrived at the junior prom, I was moved nearly to tears by the beauty that was the crepe papered high school gym. The theme was "Stairway to Heaven" and when we danced to Styx singing "Babe", I was in love. Or in heat. Or something.

After the dance, we had a few minutes before we had to be at Kaye's house for a breakfast party her mom was preparing. Apparently when you're a twenty year old guy, a few minutes is all you need to make magic.

His Dad owned some land that didn't have any houses on it and so off we went across the field in his sporty tan and green Chevy Chevette. Yes... Chevette. We parked and there under the full moon with only the stars as witness, he got what he had plotted to get. I was no longer a virgin.

I'd love to tell you that the beauty of that moment has brought a smile to my face over the years since that star lit night. I'd love to... but that would be a big dog lie.

The cold, hard facts are this: it lasted about four minutes if you count the foreplay, which consisted of unzipping his tux pants. He managed to climb over the stick shift and onto me and it was all over before I realized just what the heck he was doing.

I burst into tears.

Where were the fireworks? Where were the tears of joy he was supposed to shed as he was over come with the magnitude of the gift I had just bestowed upon him? And most of all, why didn't I feel like a woman???

I turned to him, crying so hard I'm sure he thought he must have hurt me terribly with his giant manliness and I said the words every guy wants to hear after he's just had sex with a woman.

"That's it????"

I could hear the faint sound of his manhood being sucked up inside his body. I'm hopeful that those words haunt him to this day.

Oh yeah.... I'm supposed to be talking about why I got married.

I'll get to that later.

Well... now what?
I'm still forty. I was sort of hoping I'd wake up and it was all just a tacky Bobby Ewing dream sequence. (If you don't get that reference, I hate you.)

It wasn't. I'm still forty-years-old.

I would love to say that I spent my birthday laughing and joking and just in general having a nice celebration. I did have a fabulous time, if in your culture you consider crying so hard snot comes out your nose and no one can understand a single word you say a fabulous time.

However in this culture, it would actually be referred to as a great big old pity party. Woo-hoo!

As nuts as it sounds...even to me... I woke up the day after my birthday feeling very happy. Maybe it's early onset dementia, but somehow once the actual day was past, I felt much better. I'm still not quite at ease with the number 40, but I'm working very hard to accept it. To embrace it. To figure out how to make forty the new thirty.

I have been very reflective, though. I've been thinking quite a lot about my past. My childhood specifically. Isn't that what happens right before you die? Your life flashes before your eyes? (Oh Lord, I think my right arm feels funny.)

I was thinking about some of the lessons I've learned from my Daddy and Step-mom. Some of those lessons that you will never learn in school. Lessons that may seem insignificant in the hurry that is everyday life, but remain the very foundation on which you build your life.

From Ralph and Martha, I learned:


… that if you’re not careful, you really can eat cabbage all day.

…that the “hoo-rah bush” isn’t exactly the happy place it’s name might imply.

… that if Daddy says, “the dew berries are ripe”, you’d better get your bucket and commence to picking… even if you have no idea what a dew berry is.

… that little French poodles in love will not be deterred by shotgun blasts to their little French behinds nor will sixteen-year-old teenagers in love be deterred by their Father blasting the Star Spangled Banner while they are making out.

… that one week of cleaning and peeling apples will grow and grow over the years until a grown up child can tell her own kids, “Why when I was a kid, we didn’t have anything to eat but apples for an entire summer…. and we was proud to get ‘em!”

… that when you put your tomato wine under your house to let it age, you should put a lock on the door. (So as to deter the neighborhood crazy guy from crawling under there and getting a snoot full.)

… that the only two things more powerful than Daddy are God and your Step-mom… and sometimes God would just as soon let your Step-mom deal with him.

… that only a mother could convince five children that crackers and mayonnaise are a wonderful delicacy that they are lucky to get.

… that the best cooks always wash their okra before they cut it up.

… that walking through a smelly pasture full of cow poop and bees can turn into one of the sweetest memories of your life.

… that sometimes the joy of burning a bon fire outweighs the scolding you’re going to get from Daddy when he sees the black pit in the middle of his yard.

… that the Chevrolet Chevette is apparently the best car ever made. It can withstand being driven repeatedly with the parking brake on, without oil, with the shifter dropped to second whenever a teenage girl thinks it necessary and can survive several wrecks only to be worth more when you get rid of it than it was when you bought it.

… that to this day, the most terrifying question I have ever heard uttered is, “Got any loose teeth?”

… that Mom’s wake up kids with a sweet sing-songy “Good morning” and Daddy’s do it with a cold glass of water.

… that a little girl should never get married until she finds a man that she’s pretty sure helped her Daddy hang the moon.

… that sitting outside on a Friday night with your family can repair just about any damage that the world has inflicted on you during the week.

… that as much as you secretly swore that when you grew up you would never make your children do chores and eat all their vegetables, you are thankful every time your children complain about the same things because you know someday their kids will still be doing chores and eating their vegetables.

… that if your earthly Father can love you no matter what you have done, there can be no doubt your Heavenly Father will, too.

… that when the entire world sees you as a lost cause, your parents see you as a little girl that has simply lost her way and they wait patiently for God to heal your broken spirit.

… that love is never a fifty-fifty equation and anyone that says otherwise has no idea what the heck they are talking about.

… that people are right when they say, “No man is an island”. Every decision, word or deed always affects someone besides yourself.

… that if my Step-mom wasn’t Cinderella and Daddy wasn’t Prince Charming and yet they still loved each other no matter what happened through the years, maybe real love is more of a decision than a fairy tale.

Wow, that's still good stuff.

It happened.
Somehow, during the night, in spite of anything I could do, I turned 40.

I'm forty-years-old. Forty-years-old! My mother is forty. My father is forty. Grown ups are forty-years-old. How can I be forty?

The good news is, it's nearly 8:00 a.m. and so far I have had no desire to eat prunes or put on a sweatshirt with cats all over it. That's got to be a good sign, right? Maybe I'm out of the woods, but I'm not going to let my guard down...just in case.

I don't want to take the chance that some little molecule inside me has gone terribly awry. I won't do anything that might trigger an old lady response.

So, just for today, I will steer clear of the "regularity aisle" at Wal-Mart.

I will keep the radio off just in case some smart aleck, twenty-something jack leg refers to my eighties music as "the oldies".

I will wear way too much make-up and make sure my blonde-from-a-bottle hair looks just like it did when I was thirty-nine. (Yesterday.)

I will wear a bra that boosts my girls toward the heavens and I will force myself to wear 4" heels, no matter where I go or how much I would prefer wearing tennis shoes. I'm not going to give in to the urge to wear sensible shoes today for fear of some other old lady trait it might lead to. ( I am also going to end sentences with "to" showing absolutely no regard for proper grammar.)

I'm going to hold my ground today. I will battle every single blue-haired urge I experience. If I absolutely have to be forty, I plan on looking and acting like I'm thirty-nine. If I can remember what that felt like!

Oh well, if all else fails I guess I just need to remember what my Daddy said when I told him I was feeling the tiniest bit upset at turning forty.

"You just need to remind yourself that every day on this side of the grass is a good day."

Yeah. At least I'm not dead. Thanks for that, Pop.

I'm so going to turn forty tomorrow. Guess that means dinner is at 4:30.

I guess it's time to come to some realizations about my life. Isn't that what forty-year-old people do? They come to realizations. At thirty-nine, I could still live my life without even using such a word... at forty I'll probably use words like that all the time.

To tell you the truth, I'm a little afraid to go to sleep tonight. I mean, I've always wondered how "old" people get to be who they are and how it is they come to love the stuff they love.

Whenever I see a little old lady with puffy blue hair and bright pink lips dressed in turquoise polyester pants with panty hose and little while tennis shoes... I've always wondered when that happened. At what point did she decide blue hair was the way to go? Was it when she turned forty???

So, if I go to sleep tonight still loving my bleach-blonde hair will I wake up tomorrow with an overwhelming urge to have Vonda (my hair goddess) dye it the shade of an old Easter egg???

Will I get up in the morning and rush to the nearest grocery store to buy some of those little $5.00 white tennis shoes? (Which is apparently the only place that sells such things. Haven't you always wondered who buys shoes in the grocery store? Apparently it's forty-year-old women.)

Will I type "polyester pants manufacturer" in the Google search engine tomorrow? Will I even remember what Google means?

And I guess that while I'm out shopping for sweaters with stitched kitty cats all over them, some of that realization I was talking about earlier will hit me between the eyes.

I'll finally realize that I will never be a doo-wop girl for AC/DC. I'll never be swept off my feet by Jon Bon Jovi and I will never again wear a black 'pleather' bikini (unless it's in the before picture of my Extreme Makeover).

Maybe I'll also realize I've learned a lot in these forty years of crazy. At forty I know that it's ok to be happy, while at twenty I was pretty sure I was put on this earth to be a dramatic, tortured soul.

At forty I understand that being a woman is more about what you have to contribute than it is about what you have to sacrifice. And that beauty is really a reflection of who you are rather than how much black eye liner you wear.

Ok. Maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe I won't wake up craving prunes and Lucky Strikes.

I think I'll stay awake all night though... just in case.