In Praise of Grey

Nothing would help my reputation as I slide ladylike into my later years than dating someone Aston Kutcher-ish, n'est-ce-pas? One of those barely-legal boys who've just learned to hold a pen and are still learning what to do with it. One of those sweet young things who were NOWHERE on the day JFK was assassinated. One of those boykins who are just getting over a crush on their Kindergarden teacher.

I mean, imagine who wears the pants in such a relationship, and who spends most of the time taking them off?

But honestly, they hold no appeal. I don't know why, but I'm really hooked on grey. You can have the biceps, give me bifocals. I mean until a man's at least 50, he just doesn't know the first thing about what he's doing with a woman.

In church, sometimes I'll see a guy in the pew ahead of me who's got those killer greying temples and sideburns, a bit bald and I am half out of my mind -- you should hear me praying loudly "and lead us NOT INTO TEMPTATION" and I mean it. And until a guy's a dad and been through the pure baby hell of up-all-night-marathons and the elementary school insanity of packing lunches and remembering to sign permission slips to field trips to the Zoo -- he's just not my kind of wild animal. Those wrinkly-eyed tired older guys at the PTA meetings, well, I can barely keep my panties in place when I get the chance to study a room full of those hotties. Give me paunch, give me love handles, give me foreplay that starts with both of us unable to read the fine print on the Viagra bottle and a guy who's idea of living dangerously is letting me feed him one too many little blue pills.

Older and wiser, yes, but also keenly aware that we're all gonna die some day soon. No one knows how to live better than someone who's seen some death hanging around and knows his number will be up soon enough. These guys know how to carpe diem and every other sexy practice that we like to refer to in Latin.

They know restaurants. They know the rhumba. They know romance. Yes, they've been around the block. But they can tell you a helluva story about the trip.

So I have to say I'm sorry, young guys, you're all adorable in many ways, but go pick on someone your own age. I want a man with a slow hand, a nice touch of arthritis and all afternoon to tell me about it.