Standing In The Grocery Line

It's a quick dinner tonight.  In my bag is a jar of spaghetti sauce, garlic bread, and bagged salad.  All of it on sale.  The pasta and pre-cooked burger awaits me at home.  $8.18 to feed six people.  Not bad.  I can roll quite pleased with myself on that and even overlook the white bread because the pasta is whole grain and the meat is grass fed.

From the slick cover of PEOPLE magazine, J'Lo sits prettily, her uber bronzed skin glowing, her hair and face gleaming as only a true Hollywood beauty can radiate.  The headline proclaims the secret to her best in-shape body ever is just inside the pulp pages of this ubiquitous pop culture rag. 

While I stand in the self check-out line at the Kroger on Memorial Street, holding my core in, irritatingly aware of the extra parts of Savannah my hips and mid-section have smuggled back from Savannah and it's 'Back In The Day Bakery' counter, I ponder her secret for about a millionth of a millisecond. 

Girl, please!

Air brushing.  Personal trainer.  The best dental work money can buy.  Hair extensions if needed.  I must say her flawless skin appears to be a work of heredity and heritage -- more power to her.  My heredity includes a map of spider veins and pot holes of cellulite.  Any spare change I possess will not be lining the coffers of cosmetic surgeons and aestheticians.  Natural beauty I most definitely have, but it's quickly rubbing up against natural ageing, too.  I do push-ups over push-up bras.  J-Lo appears to have more to push-up these days while I have ventured deeply into the opposite direction.  C'est la vie.

The only secret here is the mystery of why anyone would read this stuff and liken it to their own lives or expect that they could possibly be close to that popstar image in reality with all the money and time we don't have?!  It's not escapism.  It's waste-ism. 

Nothing against you, Jennifer Lopez.  I rather like you and your booty, too.  (I got me one of those, for sure!)