CALL ME SNAKE

I dropped something off at my neighbors the other night. Their three-year-old came to the door and asked me: “Why is your face all squished in?” At first I didn’t know what she was talking about, but when her mother quickly covered for her saying–”You have to realize we come from a family of fat-cheeked people”–it dawned on me that the girl was indicating that my face was showing signs of age. That same night, I watched part of a video called “Keeping Mum” that was unexceptional yet it showed me how much Kristin Scott-Thomas had aged since “The English Patient” and how much Patrick Swayze had aged since his heyday (“Dirty Dancing” or “Ghost” or “Point Break”). The same, of course, had happened to me. And maybe more so, not having availed myself of some of the options that a movie star might have opted for. I was thinking all this while debating about how to respond to the overly-frank three-year-old. While I was tempted to say, “Let’s see what you look like in 49 years.” But instead I said: “You’re right. I think an elephant must have stepped on it.”