My birthday dawned bright and cool and I set off for the mall in high spirits. I had a French pedicure and sat admiring the effect. “These are the feet of a thirty-year-old,” I told myself smugly. I was prancing around the mall on my lovely toes, picking up a book here and some lotion there, when a voice intruded:

“Excuse me, ma’am, would you be willing to take a ten-minute survey? We will compensate you for your time.”

He was probably a student trying to make ends meet; and he was cute, in the way of shy guys who don’t know how cute they are. I loved the whole world today so I agreed and followed him to the survey center. I plonked down in a chair in a little cubicle and admired my feet some more while he asked questions about my life and purchases, trying to fit me into a current survey. But I didn’t smoke, buy frozen pizza, eat out often, or watch sitcoms. Desperate, he went to his boss for a consultation and I heard the words, “Fifty-three? Do the face cream with her.”

He returned and after a few introductory questions happily announced I was a candidate for the face cream survey. We blushed and heh-heh’ed our way through the “are you pregnant or nursing” question but it was only a hint of the nightmare that was to come, as he read page after page of questions from his clipboard.

Cute Student: Would you say that your forehead is not wrinkled, slightly wrinkled, rather wrinkled, or very wrinkled?
Me: Wow. It’s, well, I guess I’d say, I mean, I guess they’re there . . .
CS: Would you say that your neck skin is firm, rather firm, slightly firm, or not at all firm?
Me: I, uh . . .
CS: Do you think your laugh lines are not yet present, just starting to be present, rather visible, or very visible?
Me: Who’s laughing?
CS: Would you say your undereye bagging is not present, just starting to be visible, really visible, or too large to fit in the overhead compartment?
Me: Um, well . . .
CS: Would you say that your facial wrinkling is not yet present, just starting to be visible, rather visible, or hideously visible at distances up to five miles in foggy conditions?
Me: Is "Jesus take me now" one of the choices?

This went on for 30 gruesome minutes. Much of the time I couldn’t bring myself to look into his clear green eyes with my baggy ones, and kept my gaze on my feet. Why, oh, why couldn’t it have been a foot cream survey? After we had completed an exhaustive journey together over every inch of my wrinkled forehead, gaping pores, prominent crow’s feet, Grand Canyonesque smile lines, and sagging chin, I slunk up to the front desk and waited to be handed my compensation. It had better be good, I thought; I damn well earned it.
They handed me an unlabelled jar of face cream. I was to use it twice a day, and a company rep would be calling me in two weeks to ask what I think. (I can hardly wait.)

I went home a humbled woman and decided it was time to ask myself some heavy questions. Should I start taking our culture’s appearance obsession a little more seriously? Should I consider Botox, surgery, or any other unnatural tinkering? Would I be a happier, better person if I let someone take an eraser to my face? I did my best to think seriously about it, but I kept breaking up over the realization that I had managed to celebrate my 53rd birthday being interviewed at extremely close range by a handsome young guy about my bags, wrinkles and lines.

And I guess that, in itself, was the answer to those serious questions: I’d rather keep laughing about it -- and keep the evidence of having done so, too.