The Best Kept Secret Blog - On Being Ma'amd

I remember the first time it happened - Vancouver, 2001, a crowded restaurant.

At first, I didn't realize he was talking to me. I kept glancing over my shoulder - trying to figure out who his question was for.

But when he fixed me with his deep blue gaze and asked again, there was no doubt. He was talking to me.

"Excuse me ma'am. Is this seat taken?"

I'd been ma'amd.

It's a small thing really, just a little rub. But when it doesn't seem like all that long ago I was being asked for I.D. at the liquor store, it seems so odd to be catapulted to the next level - the ma'am zone.

It could be worse. My gorgeous friend, A. was recently "Mom'd".

A. has just gone back to school, embarking on a new career. The majority of students are in their 20s and she finds she has more in common with the professor than her classmates. No big deal. She even joked about it with her fellow classmates until some of the "kids" started calling her "Mom". As in "Hey Mom, did you get that assignment done last night?" And "Hey Mom, how's it going?"

Now A. is hot. Picture the stereotypical soccer Mom, then picture her antithesis. You're looking at A. She is a mom but she is so not a Mom.

I was outraged (albeit on a small scale) when A. told me her tale. I wanted to march up to the clowns who teased her and tell them in no uncertain terms that A. is not a semi-invisible middle-aged woman. That she is smarter, and funnier and sexier than any one of them. I wanted to say that they should open their eyes and stop stereotyping people in their 40s and 50s.

But a fat lot of good that would do me. No, I'll wait. They'll get their due. Those 20 year old boys will evolve into middle-aged men, complete with paunch and thinning hair.

And as for A.? I have no doubts that she'll be one hot 60-something year old.