I’m starting to look like a turkey with a droopy double chin, Nicole admitted sadly as she looked at herself in the mirror. As long as she was honest with herself, she raised her head to look at her neck and see the ravages of old age. Okay, he was only middle-aged, but the signs were still there.

Maybe I should start counting the rings around my neck like you would a tree to see how old I am. Nicole looked good and groaned.

Whenever she felt bad, she used to go shopping. They called it retail therapy, but now it seemed more like retail torture.

All the tops and dresses she tried on this morning did not show her a good advantage from chest to crown. She went from store to store to see if she could find an outfit for her nephew’s wedding next month and every outfit she tried on showed her age.

I remember when I had perky breasts, no double chin, no rings around my neck, no droopy eyelids, no black rings or bags under my eyes, and no need to dye my hair. Now look at me. I’m forty-nine and I look like a hundred and forty-nine.

Nicole exercised daily and ate only healthy foods. Shouldn’t I look so much younger after taking such good care of my health? What good is starving myself and feeling pain from exercising every day if I still look old?

He didn’t need to lose weight, thank goodness. It still fitted the size six he wore in high school. Of course she knew that those clothes would look silly to her now. The problem was his hands. There was no way to disguise them.

Nicole recalled a television interview from several years ago. The first shot you saw was this young woman with a wide smile, nice legs, nice figure, dressed in a short skirt walking towards the camera. The cameraman was brilliant. Throughout the interview, he kept staring at her face, which, now in hindsight, must have had a zillion face lifts, right down to her hands that clearly showed her age. The dress had a high neck, so you couldn’t see the rings around her neck, but her hands showed that she was at least sixty years old. And throughout the interview, he kept the camera focused on his smiling, surgically enhanced face, then immediately zoomed in on his aged parchment hands, back and forth, face, then hands.

To hell with that. I will not allow Mother Nature to win this war. I’ll probably look ridiculous in the summer heat, but I’m wearing a turtleneck dress to the wedding.