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By Helen Blatz

I turned sixty last week. My kids threw me a party with a cake, streamers, sparkling wine, the whole shebang. Until then I’d never witnessed a cake with sixty candles on it. Once they were lighted, I’m certain you could see my backyard from space. Of course I was obliged to blow them out. “Come on, honey, it’s not the last blow job you’ll give tonight!” My horny husband of fifteen years shouted. He has poor hearing and no shame. He continuously brags about our sex life and has no qualms about sharing our more amorous adventures with just about anyone. Ever since we installed that hanging basket in the bedroom, I’ve noticed that the mailman looks at me differently.

Old age is a cold-hearted bitch with a 14-inch strap on.

That’s how I feel though I must confess the metaphor is borrowed from the TV show Dexter. Now that I’m a sexagenarian (an apt label for anyone over fifty with a wicker sex chair suspended from the ceiling of their boudoir) original thought is a thing of the past. It’s as if all synaptic activity has migrated south to my lower intestines, transforming itself into pulsing waves of flatulence along the way. If I had my druthers, I would have blown out my birthday candles with a mighty gust from the old caboose. But I have my position on the church membership committee to consider.

I must say, although the numbers six and zero together scare the hell out of me, my health is no source of worry these days. I feel great and plan to live for another sixty years at least. Sadly, this is not the case for some of my pals in book club. They’ve started dropping like thongs at a Viagra convention. My first husband’s cousin, Betsy (a.k.a. gay fat Betts according to my oldest son), read her last Oprah book a couple of months ago. She cashed it in shortly after scarfing down a bear claw from the food court in Macy’s basement. Apparently she had stopped taking her insulin during the Clinton administration while continuing to satiate her life-long sweet tooth with assorted treats from department store bakeries. Ketoascidosis is what it’s called. That’s when the body has too much sugar hanging around because the pancreas is no longer converting it into energy. This sends the system into shock and shuts down pretty much every life-sustaining organ. The person slips into a coma and eventually dies. Diabetes is a cold-hearted bitch with spurs and a bullwhip.

Fred, my first husband, died under the grip of acute angina. Trust me, there was nothing cute about it, though the paramedic who tried to revive him had an adorable cleft in his chin. I’m not going to go into the details of watching your sole lover of twenty-three years hit the floor like a stone but needless to say that appalling image will remain embedded in my psyche for an eternity, or until the day I finally leave this ghastly planet and head to that big bakery in the sky – where presumably Betsy will be waiting, Oprah book and bear claw in hand.

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