The Roulette Wheel

So I was walking through target this afternoon. It's still my favorite place to shop by the way. And yes it trumps anthropologie only because there isn't actually anything for me to purhase there besides house stuff. But I digress. So I'm walking through target this afternoon and they have started to put out their bathing suits and crap. I was walking past and oogling a model in one of the displays and thinking about how much effort women put into looking that good. Most of them fail actually, and after a certain relatively young age it's almost impossible to attain that physique without devoting literally all your spare time to it...which is a little nuts (cough!). So I was thinking a little about that and I STARTED to feel sorry for women in general but then I tried to think of even one friend that puprosefully strived for that image. I really couldn't think of one that was over 25 that gave a crap anymore. I started to feel pretty good about the idea that my friends don't subscribe themselves to such absurdity, then a little bit later I saw this old guy and his wife walking by the same display. I might have made it up but I could have sworn I saw saw a little sadness on the man's face as he glanced up at the display. Then I realized no one ever thinks about how that kind of image affects men and more specifically men well past their prime. They are constantly hit with those images just like everyone else, except when they look at these images they aren't consumed with "Oh man I want." They are hit with something similar but at the same time completely different. They still feel that they want it, it's the male nature still left in them, but they know that no matter their situation or how hard they try that it's never something they will have the pleasure of again. Ever. If they never were graced with the affections of such a lady then they simply never will. In my youth (Har! Har!) I have had the pleasure (and hopefully vice versa) of at least two such ladies. Though the prospect of never again having such a chance nearly crushed me, but I just couldn't summon enough sadness to empathize with this old guy. So, long story short, pity not the mid twenty that never works out and is upset about being heavy, pity the old man who will never know the incalculable wonder of a beautiful woman nude before him. The most beauiful experience in the world.

Tommy "Suspending the 'eye of the beholder' rule just for this post" Schubert