There comes a time in a woman’s life when people start calling her M’am. My time has come. I am okay with it. I’ve earned it. But I still wince and look over my shoulder to see if my grandmother is behind me.
At first it was a difficult adjustment, but I finally admitted that it really was appropriate. When it comes time to fill in online the year I was born, the slidey thing which used to be way, way close to the top is now way, way closer to the bottom. I am legitimately old enough to be a grandmother, a few times over. It just happens. One day you notice the furniture you grew up with is now coveted and unaffordable mid-century modern. You become guilty of saying annoying things like “I remember when a slice of pizza was a quarter.” Your children patiently roll their eyes. You realize when the gas station attendant asks “Fill’er up, M’am?” he is talking to you.
My status (or lack thereof) is particularly evident as I walk through the city and the shopping malls and marvel at what young women are wearing. There is absolutely nothing left to the imagination. The skirts are so short that my husband observed that they aren’t actually skirts, but rather wide belts. The cleavage display is spectacular and universal. The bank tellers, the nursery school teachers, even the young moms at church on Sunday. I am resigned to the fact that most of my wardrobe now comes from solid, stodgy places like Land’s End. I can still find a few normal pieces of underwear in the sea of thongs in the lingerie department. I am officially a middle-aged woman. (Which is actually true only if I live to be 117.) Yes, I do sometimes feel I have been set out on the ice floe of mom jeans. Yes, I sound more and more like Marge Simpson.”Am I cool, kids?”
I am very embarrassed to report that last week I committed an unforgiveable act against middle-aged women. When I walked into the nail salon, there were two available chairs. One was assigned to a twenty-something year-old woman who had been my technician (that’s what they call them) the last time. She had done a good job. The other tech was an older woman, in her mid-fifties. With eyeglasses. I immediately had doubts because of her age and her vision.
The salon manager spoke in staccato Vietnamese to the older woman and soon she gestured me to her pedicure chair. I took a deep breath. In most nail salons it is not polite to request a particular technician. The managers wisely try to rotate the workers so that everyone gets a fair chance at making a day’s tips. You can’t say “But I prefer Mei.” So I sank into the chair and hoped for the best.
The color was Fishnet Stockings, 
a really deep red that always reminds me of Joan Crawford or Bette Davis. It is not an easy color to apply because every mistake screams BAD JOB. But I was determined to enjoy the massage and the whirlpool, and perhaps at home I would need to touch up the results.
Was she worse at her job because she was thirty years older than her co-worker? Did her hands shake a little like mine do? Was her vision, like mine, not what it used to be? Would a hot flash consume her in the middle of painting my big toe? I ask myself all these questions. Then the guilt sets in and another voice admonishes the first. She has thirty more years of experience! She has thirty more years of technique! She has thirty more years of muscle memory! Her boyfriend is not madly texting her as she works!
An hour later I paid for the visit, and as I bent down to pull the little rubber toe separators off my feet, I was able to see what a fine job she had done. I felt very ashamed that I had judged her abilities based entirely on her age.
From one M’am to another, I am truly sorry.