Of FDS and Aqua Net

I had lunch yesterday with Mrs. Walter Krupmann, whose Christian name is Murial.  Walter Krupman is in diapers and baby attire (as lines of business - not because he is incontinent) ; Murial’s profession is having lunch with her friends.

Also at the table was Alice Tompkins, widow of Adelbert Thompkins.  Adelbert died years ago in an elevator fall, so Alice likes to tag along every now and then, but she seldom makes a peep. But she does have very expressive eyes.

We've been meeting for lunch every few weeks since we met while working on Hubert Humphrey's presidential campaign.

As we were dining, Murial and I were talking about the usual things – nothing out of the ordinary - and Alice was watching us banter back and forth as if she were at the French Open.  You know “…how is Walter…I’m so sorry that your pool man didn’t work out this year…that certainly is a gorgeous color of blue...and did I mention that my Night Blooming Cerius flowered...” and the like, when Murial said that she had she had something terribly sad to tell us.

Alice sat down her unsweetened iced tea.  Sad news?  Her lip trembled and she looked as if she just might have to let out a sound.

“What is it dear,” I asked, patting her hand and dreading the answer.  Murial is often given to the dramatic; the last terribly sad news that she imparted was that her husband was having a split toenail removed.  Painful? For him. Sad for us? Not so much.

“I need bifocal glasses," said Murial with all the stoicism in the world as if she were holding back a wave of self doubt and tears and had just found out that she had an incurable soap operahish sounding disease. 

This, I thought, is terribly sad news?   Alice cocked her head as if agreement with my unspoken thought.

“Good gracious I have relied on cheaters for years,” I said.  “And when we have bridge parties, everyone except you, Murial, has a pair dangling from a chain around their neck.  You lean forward to make a play and they 'clang' against the metal frame on the card table.  Thats why it sounds like an out of tune band at dupicate bridge with all of us rattling about.”

Alice as if to back me up, displayed her Walgreens cheaters in her hand.  The magnifiers were suspended around her neck from a lovely gold chain.  Alice is one of those women who never places her cheaters on her face, but instead holds them from afar while she looks through them like a surveyor eyeballing a triangulation.

But to Murial, this was her sad news.  This was sign that her arms had lost their length and that she was getting.  Before she could look about at her contemporaries and see that she was the final hold out, but no longer.  "I suppose it happens to all of us sooner or later," she said with resignation. 

Fact of the matter is that she no longer felt young, and for any woman, that is a sad moment.  (For me it was menopause until I relaized that Edwin and I could have sexual congress when it was all said and done without a pill, a condom or a cervical cap.  After that, my day brightened up!) 

I asked “what about contacts,” and she said that the idea of sticking something onto her eyes was distasteful -  so glasses it is.

And how did she come to this realization?

Murial: “It's been coming on for years, but it came to a head when I was scheduled to go to the ‘lady’ doctor and I had a mishap.” 

Me: “I don’t understand.”

Murial: “The mishap?”

Me: “No.  What is a lady doctor?”

Murial: “Dr. Gorman.  She’s a lady doctor.” 

Me: "And because she is a she, you mean she is a lady and a doctor?  Am I understanding you?"

Murial: “No.  She’s a lady, and she’s a LADY doctor.” 

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry – is Dr. Gorman your gynecologist? “

Alice: “Martha, shhhhhhh!  People will hear!”

This annoyed me.  I wasn't announcing it to the room, but in a low conversation tone of voice.  And God knows that I think the world of Alice, but sometimes she just doesn't comprehend that by our form of dress, our hair, our voices and our bodies in general, that people know we are women and thus have the matching genitalia under our clothing.

But back to Murial. EVIDENTLY, Murial was so upset about getting her PAP smear that she got her "FDS and Aqua Net confused.  When I got to the doctor everything was crispy and crunchy ‘down there’.  I simply could have died.”  By this point Alice's eyeballs were the size of saucers.

Poor Murial: she is a captive of the Women’s Hygiene Industry.  I could have told her that products like feminine sprays are an utter waste of money.  A good douching with vinegar and water and regular bathing is all she needs to keep her vagina healthy and clean at our age. 

If nothing else, I told her that she should be thankful that she still has her pubic hair. “Constance Warrington’s fell out when her mother died," I pointed out.  "The doctor said it was stress.” 

Alice, who volunteered with Constance at First Congregational Church, nodded in agreement.  "She's as bald down there as the day she was born."  Now it was us with the saucer sized eyes.  Alice is not prone to such descriptive outbursts.  In her high school yearbook she was the girl that was "least likely to speak above a soft whisper."

But she went on:

“The disturbing thing is that Mr. Warrington finds it quite the object of excitement.  He won’t leave her alone,” Alice added.

There was quite a pregnant pause as we groped for a way to get out of the topic, and our server filled our cups with fresh hot coffee.  As soon as she had left our table, I thought I would bring up the idea of the three of us driving out to Gabriel Brothers and looking for inexpensive shoes.  Nothing diverts a woman's attention than good shoes at a value price. But it wasn't to be.

“That filthy little man!" exclaimed Alice from nowhere, her face scrunching up. "I would have divorced him had that happened to me!”

"Or," said Murial with one eyebrow cocked higher than the other, "pushed him down an elevator shaft?"

"Check please!"

*****

I returned home to find Edwin tying fishing lures in his den.  As I looked around I thought to myself “Thank goodness my husband isn’t in diapers like Murial’s husband, and thank goodness I have the good sense to get my eyes examined, and thank God that I can say 'vagina' aloud!”

Remember dear reader: prize knowledge!  Lower forms exist without.

Very truly yours,

Mrs. Edwin Smith Standish