Not too long ago I let all of you know about my divorce that occurred last year.  It was a whirlwind affair, taking about six weeks until it was all said and done.  My ex-husband insisted that everything be finished as quickly as possible.  This necessitated review by the editorial staff of the Smart Aleck Press. Being the only staff person, I found myself engaged in many one-sided conversations about the matter.  A tentative title in my head for the legal proceedings was “Wham, Bam, Thank you Ma’am.”    It was like a quickie movie star divorce from the ‘50’s, only I’m not a movie star, I’m well past my 50’s, and I’m  not living in that decade.  Most of the time, the movie stars got to go to someplace exotic, such as Nevada or Mexico.  I merely went to my lawyers office downtown.  The only thing exotic was the price of the parking.

During one of the solitary staff meetings of the SAP (not to be confused with the Spanish language option), I thought it might be helpful to trot out epithets from the ‘70’s.  Moving ahead by a few decades felt like an improvement.  Slogans such as: A Woman Needs A Man Like A Fish Needs a Bicycle! came to mind.  Burn Your Bra, was another one.  Bra’s for older women are so terribly expensive, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Besides, the ozone layer doesn’t need the chemicals from that much burned spandex wafting through it.

Being alone for a large part of the time, I began to wonder if I would ever date again.  Not the gentleman caller variety, you understand, just looking for a little giddy-up.  Can that happen when one divorces in the Golden Years of Medicare?  I’ve been told that there’s a word for women who are a lot older but who date much younger men.  The urban myth is that the age group for women who are considered Cougars is younger than I am.  I’ve heard this is somewhere between 40 and 55.  If that’s the case, I am  way past Cougar Town here.  This is one time I don’t feel lucky to have aged out of something.

I have only heard men use this term.  They are referring to a “much older” woman that dates younger men.  For the life of me, I can’t remember what it is.  It is delivered as a derogatory term, as  many epithets about women often are.  Pondering the matter only seems to make the word escape further back into the recesses of the brain but would be s instantly recognizable upon hearing it.  There is a small part of me that wants to blame this memory lapse on age.  I don’t really think it’s my age, I think it’s just obscurity.  Not having heard the word very often, it’s hard to pull it out of storage for convenient use.  As I consider my options for who and when I will date, for whatever reason I choose to date them, I don’t think there’s one word for this phenomenon.  I think it’s a whole phrase, and it typifies how women usually handle the quandaries of life:  I know better.  I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar. (Thank you Helen Reddy).

A recent flight for vacation brought me to the waiting area for the airplane.  You’re likely familiar with the small cramped waiting room at airline gates that have room for about 30 people, but they’ve booked 120 or so for the flight.  While I sat in one of the luxurious pleather chairs, I had the good fortune to be staring at the TSA sign showing what you can and cannot take aboard a flight.  Many of these made good sense.  For example, you cannot take weapons of any kind.  I like that rule and hope that we all abide by it.  The reason for prohibiting the other items seemed less obvious.  Apparently you cannot take a car battery with you on a plane.  My first thought was that if you needed a car battery, you would likely be near your car and not an airplane.  Also, if you needed a car battery at the place you were flying to, wouldn’t you just go to the local auto parts store.  Like democracy, I believe that there are auto parts stores everywhere and that car batteries can be purchased easily.  This may not be the case all over the world, but I’m hanging on to the notion about the auto parts stores, and the availability of car batteries.

The real puzzler for me, though, was the prohibition against carrying on cleaning fluids.  First of all, flying anywhere for me is usually a vacation.  I won’t be cleaning anything. As, I’m sure, are none of the other women in my vicinity who are also traveling.  While I’m sitting in the airport waiting area, I try and pick out the men who would travel with cleaning fluids.  I’d like to know who they are.  I’ve raised one son and had a couple of husbands.  All of them expressed vehement disdain for being anywhere near cleaning solutions.  Who the hell would fly with them?

Is TSA concerned that some guy will bump into others as he boards with his matching O-Cedar Mop and Bucket?  Are they afraid that the scent of Pine-Sol would overpower the smell of their great “famous maker” coffees?  Perhaps  they worry that those seats we all sit in over and over again would finally get clean.  Truthfully, I would like to see some guy trying to wrangle bottles of cleaning solutions, a squeegee, some rags and those little yellow plastic cleaning gloves onto an airplane.  This is a man I would want to sit next too.  Worry-free, germ-free, right in the seat next to me.

An adage from my youth was that cleanliness is next to godliness.  If we have men bringing cleaning solutions onto airplanes, and those airplanes are up in the sky, I’m thinking that I’ve doubled down on the “next to godliness” part if I’ve got one of those clean freaks on the same flight as me.  Safe travels for everyone!

Recently my doctor told me that I would need surgery on my lady parts.  This is a fairly routine operation for a simply cyst removal.  The doctor did express that anything removed would be sent for biopsy to verify that there was nothing cancerous.  Initially he stated that there should be a removal of all female organs  “just to be sure.”  I turned down this offer, as I am politically opposed to hysterectomies. I feel that if someone went to medical school for 12 years and has been in a female related specialty practice for more than 10 years, one should be able to come up with a solution that is better than “let’s take it all out.”  Thinking I might need those lady parts throughout the rest of my life, I declined the generous offer to make me a eunuch.  Instead, I settled for a partial parts removal.  This involved tubes and valves and knobs and whatnot, but not my uterus. I didn’t want my uterus removed for two reasons.  First of all, I’m still using it and, secondly, it contains the Thing Finder.

You may not know it by that name, but there is universal consensus that all women have a Thing Finder.  Not everyone is aware that it’s located in the uterus but where else could it be if only women have it?  Whenever someone in your family is looking for something, they typically ask the woman of the house, “Hey, where’s my .  .  .(inset name of the thing they are looking for)”  It is fully expected that the woman will know where the thing is.  Near as I can figure, this can only be accomplished by use of a Thing Finder.   Popular examples of using a Thing Finder include asking your wife where your car keys are,  asking your mother where laundry detergent is kept, asking your sister where a broom is to sweep up something that you spilled, or asking your grandmother where the silver ware or dishes are  when you visit her for dinner and  she asks you to help set the table.  People doing the asking know that all these women have a Thing Finder.   Because only women have them, it is logically located in the uterus.  All women have them but women who have had children have the advanced  version.

Personally, I have model #A09214500, installed when I was born.  The advanced version was updated in 1982 after the birth of my oldest child.   It’s important to know your model  number, in case you have to order parts or if you have some of it removed, so they can substitute the correct piece based on your particular manufacturers model.

Almost immediately after childbirth, people began asking me to find things for them.  There seemed to be a signal, like the Bat Phone in the sky, that I had upgraded to the advanced version of a Thing Finder by virtue of having a ushered a human being through the birth canal.  After that , it was expected that  I would be able to find things like lost hairbrushes, the location of items in refrigerators, items lost between car seats.  They don’t have to think about where things are, because they are in the company of someone who has a Thing Finder.  Possession of a Thing Finder can give the impression of near invincibility, all because of the ability to find “things.”

I believe that men have Thing Finders, but I don’t really know where they’re a range as the models issued to women and certainly are not activated with child birth.  Not everyone who has a Thing Finder wants to use it for others, which is fine.  Some days I can’t seem to shut mine off.  No matter, it’s a pretty handy gadget.  I’m looking forward to the rest of my lifetime of being able to find things.

Recently my doctor told me that I would need surgery on my lady parts.  This is a fairly routine operation for a simply cyst removal.  The doctor did express that anything removed would be sent for biopsy to verify that there was nothing cancerous.  Initially he stated that there should be a removal of all female organs  “just to be sure.”  I turned down this offer, as I am politically opposed to hysterectomies. I feel that if someone went to medical school for 12 years and has been in a female related specialty practice for more than 10 years, one should be able to come up with a solution that is better than “let’s take it all out.”  Thinking I might need those lady parts throughout the rest of my life, I declined the generous offer to make me a eunuch.  Instead, I settled for a partial parts removal.  This involved tubes and valves and knobs and whatnot, but not my uterus. I didn’t want my uterus removed for two reasons.  First of all, I’m still using it and, secondly, it contains the Thing Finder.

You may not know it by that name, but there is universal consensus that all women have a Thing Finder.  Not everyone is aware that it’s located in the uterus but where else could it be if only women have it?  Whenever someone in your family is looking for something, they typically ask the woman of the house, “Hey, where’s my .  .  .(inset name of the thing they are looking for)”  It is fully expected that the woman will know where the thing is.  Near as I can figure, this can only be accomplished by use of a Thing Finder.   Popular examples of using a Thing Finder include asking your wife where your car keys are,  asking your mother where laundry detergent is kept, asking your sister where a broom is to sweep up something that you spilled, or asking your grandmother where the silver ware or dishes are  when you visit her for dinner and  she asks you to help set the table.  People doing the asking know that all these women have a Thing Finder.   Because only women have them, it is logically located in the uterus.  All women have them but women who have had children have the advanced  version.

Personally, I have model #A09214500, installed when I was born.  The advanced version was updated in 1982 after the birth of my oldest child.   It’s important to know your model  number, in case you have to order parts or if you have some of it removed, so they can substitute the correct piece based on your particular manufacturers model.

Almost immediately after childbirth, people began asking me to find things for them.  There seemed to be a signal, like the Bat Phone in the sky, that I had upgraded to the advanced version of a Thing Finder by virtue of having a ushered a human being through the birth canal.  After that , it was expected that  I would be able to find things like lost hairbrushes, the location of items in refrigerators, items lost between car seats.  They don’t have to think about where things are, because they are in the company of someone who has a Thing Finder.  Possession of a Thing Finder can give the impression of near invincibility, all because of the ability to find “things.”

I believe that men have Thing Finders, but I don’t really know where they’re a range as the models issued to women and certainly are not activated with child birth.  Not everyone who has a Thing Finder wants to use it for others, which is fine.  Some days I can’t seem to shut mine off.  No matter, it’s a pretty handy gadget.  I’m looking forward to the rest of my lifetime of being able to find things.