A Woman of a Certain Age....

There is this thing that all women do when they come of a certain age. I never quite knew why women did it until I too came of a certain age. And I can promise you that during my book club discussions, 50% of the women in the room at all times are doing this thing. Sometimes it is subconscious, and sometimes it is deliberate. And this thing they do is meant to appear as a function of deep reflection, a physical expression of auditory agreement, but it not. Women of a certain age caress their chin and upper lip searching for escaped prisoners. They are doing a bed check.

And it is not the white collar criminals that are of concern. They are benign. They are not true social deviants. It’s the hardened criminals that invite consternation. The heinous ones that commit assault and battery during social greetings unless the social greeting is an air kiss. It’s the serious offenders-- the incarcerated who are visible without reading glasses who induce distress.

And if an escaped prisoner is detected during a social gathering, a woman of a certain age will unknowingly hit the panic button. A mental alarm will respond: Lockdown! Lockdown! Prisoner outbreak from maximum security! A prisoner has escaped! Repeat: A prisoner has escaped! All digits will then follow protocol. The woman will obsessively compulsively keep her index finger on the point of escape as if she could somehow press the hardened criminal back into their cell—which of course is futile. The escapee will enjoy its freedom until Tweezerman (rated #1 by Allure magazine) or the SWAT team (the waxing salon) takes him out.

 According to Wikipedia:

The Thinker is a bronze and marble sculpture by Auguste Rodin, whose first cast, of 1902, is now in the Musée Rodin in Paris. It depicts a man in sober meditation battling with a powerful internal struggle.[1] It is often used to represent philosophy.

I think Rodin was inspired by a woman of a certain age. And that woman was meditating about facial hair removal which in those days was problematic since they were sans Tweezerman. That was her internal struggle. The sculpture does not represent philosophy; it represents incarceration—Are facial hairs subservient to womankind? or Is womankind subservient to facial hair? That’s what the thinker is really thinking.

To view Rodin's work : http://www.connorgouge.com/?p=263