Packages and Perceptions.

Let’s be honest, babies don’t really look like little people, do they? Not normal people. Exactly what they do look like is a matter of individual perception. To my jaundiced eye they look like miniature versions of the missing link, but I’m not normal either. (And I was a rare exception to my own rule. I have a picture of me as a baby and I don’t look at all like the missing link. I look like something Agent Muldur might find hiding in a cupboard, and then call out ‘Hey, Scully. Come look at this. Now do you believe?’)

I saw another exception today, sitting in a buggy at a store checkout. It was very tiny and looked to be no more than a few months old, if that. And yet it was sitting up under its own effort and looked both content and interested. In fact, I’d say it really did look like a normal person, only tiny and more rubbery. And it had a band around its head with a big pink bow attached to adorn its forehead. Strange and stylish in one package. Unusual.

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I’m becoming increasingly conscious of the fact that young women stare at me a lot. This is a puzzle, but I’m inclined to assume that they’re thinking ‘Oh my God, is that what I’m going to have to wake up next to somewhere down the line? I wonder whether you can get divorce insurance.’

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And on that note, I’ve also noticed an interesting phenomenon. Just now and then – I would say once every few years on average – I see a young or youngish woman who is so utterly different and magnetically compelling that the sight of her blows me away. She looks like a prize orchid growing in and above a nettle patch, and is never, ever glamorous.

I saw one today, and heard myself say, ‘Oh where were such prizes in my younger day?’

(And then I got to thinking about the awful ramifications that would ensue if someone gave you the ‘gift’ of staying 25 forever, but that can make another post another time.)