Abigail also cannot understand pregnant women appearing in public, unembarrassed by their big bellies. Don’t they realize people will know how they got that way? In her day, they were much more discreet.
She often wonders whatever happened to aprons and house dresses. In fact, she questions whatever happened to dresses, period. She is convinced that American culture degenerated when women began wearing pants. That was when wives started to think that maybe their husbands shouldn’t be the boss and tell them what to do. Tsk! Tsk! Everyone knows that men are smarter and should rule the household. Women should not be worrying their pretty heads about things they don’t understand. The whole “women’s liberation” nonsense is unnatural and sinful, she maintains.
She drives twenty miles out of her way to a service station where the nice young man at the cash register will come out to pump the gas for her. She’d never dream of doing it herself (again, even if she knew how). She’s a lady, and that’s man’s work.
And why, in heaven’s name, do her contemporaries, and even much younger females, want to be called “women” instead of “girls”? What’s that all about?
She decries the demise of women’s hats and white gloves. A Catholic, she would never dream of entering a church hatless, regardless of the new rules. And she still won’t eat meat on Fridays, no matter what that progressive Pope said decades ago. She never did quite trust him.
Abigail really hates super markets. The bigger they are, the more she detests them. She misses the small neighborhood independent grocer who waited on you (no reaching to shelves and into bins to select your own food) and wrote and added up the prices on a paper bag. What’s more, he knew how much change to give you from a twenty dollar bill without having a new-fangled machine tell him. Furthermore, you always got change from a twenty when you bought a week’s worth of groceries.
As for those groceries, I bet she’s secretly glad that Mr. Birdseye invented frozen foods, though she’d never admit to using them.
And why is everyone always carrying a bottle of water wherever they go, she wonders. Do they think they’re going to suddenly be abducted by aliens and dropped in the middle of the Sahara?
She liked it better before anyone had ever heard of cholesterol. How are you supposed to make a flaky pie crust without lard, she asks. And how come real sour cream, real butter, real bacon — in fact, anything really tasty — are now no-no’s?
And whatever happened to music, Abigail wants to know. She can’t believe the hideous sounds produced by today’s rock bands that have names like “Post-Surgical Adhesions.” As far as she’s concerned there hasn’t been any music worth listening to since Lawrence Welk went to that big bandstand in the sky. The last singing group she enjoyed were those lovely Maguire Sisters. And she absolutely refuses to believe that one of them could ever have been involved with a Mafioso.
As for movies, Abigail hasn’t been to one since the Hays Office was abolished, but she has heard that without censorship the cinema has sunk to unbelievable depravity. Couples are actually shown in double beds! Worse, on-screen nudity is allowed! (She spells it “nudirty.”) She also has heard that the language is atrocious. If she were ever unfortunate enough to enter a movie theater these days, she knows she would have to be physically restrained from rushing down the aisle to wash out the actors’ mouths with soap. But even if the movies were still decent, she wouldn’t go. She understands that the price is fifty times what it used to be — even with a senior discount — and there’s no second feature, no newsreel, and no free dishes.
And it’s not just the movies. Everything is ridiculously expensive these days. She can’t get over the fact that a couple of root canals and a filling cost more than she and her husband paid for their first house.
But, then, nothing is the same as it used to be. Abigail went to a high school reunion recently and was horrified to see that the gorgeous football hero hunk she had had a huge crush on in her senior year had deteriorated to a wizened, wrinkled mess. How could he have let himself go so in such a short time?
And speaking of school, she is absolutely horrified that colleges now have co-ed dorms and uni-sex bathrooms. (I have to admit that so am I, actually.)
I also agree with Abigail on a few other issues:
Why aren’t they making mirrors like they did fifty years ago? These new ones certainly don’t reflect images accurately. All of mine apparently are covered with hairline cracks that make my face look like a topographical map. And why do we have to pay $125 for a jar of face cream we used to get at Woolworths for twenty-five cents? And whatever happened to Woolworths, by the way?
OMG! I’m beginning to sound like Abigail! Next thing I know, I’ll be tossing my computer out the window and trading in my car for a horse and buggy.
©2011 Rose Madeline Mula for SeniorWomen.com
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