Headlines at checkout keep her away from store
by BARBARA DICKINSON

PHOBIA: Persistent, abnormal, or irrational fear of a specific thing or situation that compels one to avoid the feared stimulus.

I include the above dictionary definition by way of explaining a spate of recent bizarre behavior on my part. Perhaps not explaining so much as offering a rationale for my activities. Or non-activities.

I have begun conscientiously avoiding trips to grocery stores.

My duties in the kitchen have not been totally abandoned, those of fixing my spouse three square meals a day. And my cookbooks still get thumbed and the path to the refrigerator remains well-trod. Never mind that the leftovers on the refrig’s shelves get moved like pieces on a checkerboard for two or three days in hopes they will appear all new second time around. I haven’t lost my zest for experimenting with new recipes or trying exotic concoctions…provided someone else does the shopping.

What has induced this “fear of a specific thing” — grocery shopping — in an otherwise normal, healthy housewife and cook? Migraines? Mid-life crisis?

(Long past mid-life, sad to say.) Too much medication? None of the above.

I have begun shunning grocery aisles because of the array of magazines leering from the side of every check-out line. North, south, east, west in both city and county of Roanoke, magazines are magnets at the entrance to the checkers’ stations. The covers are slick, the models all paragons of beauty and artifice. And did I mention they have absolutely perfect hair? Yet it’s not their beauty that gets to me.

I am decades older than any of the nubile young women adorning these tabloids and definitely suffer no identity crisis. No, it is not the beauty, but the sheer audacity of the headlines gracing these covers. When my squeamish nerves allowed me to run to a major market for milk and gingersnaps (much needed comfort food), I took time to note a few offenders. Just take a look, if you will, at the following samples:

“No more dimply fat!”

“Make the most of your shape: lose 10 pounds by May 1.”

“7 Moves to jiggle-proof your thighs” (I did not make this up!)

“Getting Gorgeous: Tips and Tricks from the Stars”

“Overnight Beauty”

“Flab-free in Record Time”

I ask you, wouldn’t any one of these headlines give you an inferiority complex? In my over-the-hill age I know that I have some fat and a pair of thighs that definitely jiggle. No diet nor tips nor tricks is going to ensure my “overnight beauty” or my flab-free status. As for losing 10 pounds by May 1, forget that!

Perhaps I am taking these messages too personally but it seems that Meg or Gwyneth or Halle is looking right at me; indeed, right through me, and issuing a summons to take their words to heart. Just where would I begin? With the “dimply fat”?

What I’d like to do is confront these glamour gals and ask them, one on one, if they really follow through on the advice they so freely deliver. Do they exercise 4-6 hours per day? Is carrot juice their drink of choice? To begin with, did they ever have any “dimply fat”?

With little or no prospect of accomplishing such a meeting, I’ve tried to figure out other ways to avoid these sirens of the checkout lines. I cannot skip grocery shopping much longer. Timing is the key. If I plan my hours to get in and out without waiting in line I might avoid this painful confrontation altogether. No more Halle, Heather or Meg. I can toss the leftovers, whip up a fattening dessert destined to put a few dimples on my jiggling thighs, and rejoice in my phobia-free, unglamourous personna.

Life is a lot more fun this way.

Barbara M. Dickinson of Roanoke hereby resolves to garden herself to “thin.”

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