The Best Kept Secret Blog - So Popular

Now that women over 40 are the hot new thing, I’m afraid to leave to the house lest a sex-starved college boy be lurking behind my rose bushes, waiting to seduce me. So far the only thing I’ve seen back there is the Rakowski’s poodle doing her business but I know it’s just a matter of time.

It started when the marketing types figured out that we control the purse strings. Suddenly we couldn’t pick up a magazine or turn on the t.v. without seeing an ad telling us know how smart, sexy and confident we are. At first I kept looking over my shoulder, certain they must be talking about someone else. “Who? Me?” I wanted to ask. But the messages continued, assuring me that 40 is the new 25.

Well, who am I to argue with all these smart advertising men. If they say we’re smart and sexy then gosh, I guess we are. Though I do think my friend Audrey took the message too much to heart when she went to that southern resort last winter. I don't care how sexy we are, a 200 lb. woman who's had three C-sections should not be wearing a bikini on a public beach.

And then there was poor Dorothy, newly divorced and trying to get back in the dating scene. I told her to lie about her age when she filled in her LavaLife profile but oh no, she had to be honest and put down 45. Well, she couldn't keep up with all the responses she got from 20 year-old guys wanting to meet her. After all, dating a cougar is the latest must-have status symbol.

"I really don't enjoy dating these guys," Dorothy told me. "They treat me like some Sugar Mamma, always expecting me to pick up the cheque. And then there's the sex thing. Not only do they assume my hormones make me want it all the time, they think my age and experience means I can teach them all kinds of tricks. My ex and I did buy a copy of the Kama Sutra once but we had only gotten to the second position before the dog chewed it. And by then, the kids had come along and we were so tired that we just never bothered learning anything new after that. "

And now, thanks to Susan Boyle, things have gotten even harder. It's not enough to be a middle-aged woman, we have to be middle-aged women with a talent. Suddenly everyone's looking at us, expecting us to burst into song or dance at the drop of a hat. I feel immense pressure to go out and take voice lessons, or maybe tap, so I can impress the check-out girl at the grocery store. I just can't bear the thought of disappointing everyone when they learn that my hobbies include scrapbooking and reading Harlequin Romances. Interesting, yes, but the stuff of reality shows? I think not.

How I long for the days when I was simply invisible and could let myself go. I just didn’t know how good I had it back then. But I’ll play by the new rules and keep up my gym membership, reinvent myself as a life coach and flaunt my beauty to the cougar hunters at the bar. I just hope pop culture’s pendulum swings soon and people get on to some other hot new thing. Like middle-aged men.

The Best Kept Secret Blog - Dead Rodents

There's a dead squirrel in my driveway. I don't quite know how it got there. It just kind of showed up there one day.


When it first appeared, my first thought was to call 911. But almost immediately I thought no, they won't see it as the same kind of emergency I do. It crossed my mind to call someone at the city but what with all the cut backs lately I was pretty sure they wouldn't be of much use. We barely get our garbage picked up, let alone dead squirrels. And even if they did have that kind of service, everyone knows what a horror it is trying to get through on those phone systems. I could just imagine it. "If you're calling about dead raccoons, please press 1. If you're calling about dead squirrels, please press 2."


I almost called my husband at work. I would have asked him to come home immediately but then I remembered he was away on business all week. Isn't that just like him to never be around when I really need him.

I know you're probably wondering why I just didn't pick the stupid thing up myself but I have a phobia of dead rodents. And live ones. And pictures of them. I was paralyzed.


With no other plan coming immediately to mind, all I could do was go about my day. I got in the car and left to get groceries. It wasn't until I got back and parked the car that I realized I had run over the squirrel. Twice.


The upside was that it was flatter and I hoped this would make the squirrel less noticeable. In fact, I could have forgotten all about it if I hadn't happened to notice our elderly neighbour out walking his poodle. My goodness, who would have thought that Muffy could tug on a leash so hard. Why I thought she'd pull Mr. Johnson right off her feet trying to get to that squirrel.


Hiding behind the curtains so Mr. Johnson wouldn't see me (I just hate when Mr. Johnson waves that cane around when he's mad) I knew I had to do something, but what?

I'm fully aware that a normal person would have just picked it up with a shovel and put it in the green bin for garbage pick up but I couldn't do that. Not only does my phobia prevent me from going near it but I couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like every time I took the trash out. It would just be laying there, staring at me.

As the week went on, it got easier and easier to run over the squirrel. Off to the PTA meeting? Vroom. . . the squirrel was flatter. Coming home from yoga class? Vroom . . . it would be practically invisible. But try as I might, the thing never disappeared, causing dog walkers and mothers of small children to start and jerk their young charges quickly away.

By Saturday, my husband was home and ready to deal with the problem. Strangely, I had grown an affinity to the squirrel. I had grown used to it in the same way one grows used to a soccer ball or sprinkler that gets left in the yard. It's part of the landscape and things just look off without it.