Words of Wisdom from my Aunt

I have a really, really funny aunt. I always knew she was funny but had no idea to what extent until she started responding to some of my blogs. This particular response left me rolling. I have not asked her permission yet (you know who you are, please don't kill me for posting this) but I have not been able to stop thinking and laughing at her brilliant, witty response.

So Aunt________, thanks for being funny. Really funny. I hope I have your humor genes in my DNA, because laughter goes a long way. And I really hope I can write as well as you one day. Maybe not so much the Lycra...but everything else I would love to inherit from you...you make me smile.

In response to: Summer is Here!

"Jenny, you are so skinny and so mistaken. The old lady way to swim begins long before the big toe ever shrivels from the cold cold water. The old lady way begins in January when you go, "If I don't start cutting back now, I'll be too embarrassed to go swimming this summer." Followed by the search for the skirted swim suit or the ever-popular swim shorts, the "ThinSuit," or the Lycra Miracle.

I'll never forget the first summer it happened to me. Summer of 1989. Remember your cousins were born in November 1988. Jiggles and stretch marks galore. Not a pretty sight. Where is that maternity swimsuit? I looked skinny in it. Go for the skirted model that I remember paying $50 for even in 1989 in the midst of taking 11 months off work to raise my babies. Only to be told by my brother, who until that point in my mind was the sweetest man on the face of the earth: "______ (insert unknown Aunt here)," he drawled as only he can drawl, "I've seem Mamaw swimsuits before, but that is the Mamawest of all the Mamaw suits I've ever seen."

I huffily turned my fat, white, stretch-marky self away from him and dove into the pool- off the diving board- the real way. When I surfaced, the Mamaw swimsuit had taken on a life of its own. I was drowning in a sea of turquoise and purple floral Lycra/Spandex. It was snuffing the youth out of me. I was never to be the same again."