Women Like Us!
Posted: Tuesday, June 21, 2011
by Amanda Johnson
I’m standing in line at the grocery store and as usual this won’t be an in and out sort of thing. The lady currently at the register heaves out her portfolio of coupons and begins to hunt and peck. All five of us behind her lets out a collective heavy sigh. Someone further behind me smothers a curse and heads are shaking back and forth in disgust as feet shuffle and hands get planted on hips. None of this is going to make coupon lady go any faster of course. She could care less and God bless her for saving those fifty cents in this economy. That’s about all it amounts to as she kept pulling out expired or wrong product coupons though of course she has to argue these points profusely. I’m probably the least bothered in line because I’m not often in a hurry these days since joining the land of the lost in the unemployment world. Heck, we’re all trained. There’s nothing but lines and waiting where we’re from.
I got to thinking however, that it doesn’t leave much for the rest of us who have long ago put aside all hopes and dreams of being a model, cover girl or beauty queen, if we ever had those thoughts to begin with. Here’s a shocker to a lot of people-a whole slew of us never wanted to be any of those things anyway. Of course, we like to look nice and gussy up every now and then. We will get our hair done and buy something new on occasion, but real women don’t have the resources the cover girls do. I mean really, these women can spit out 8 babies and show up the next day in a bikini with flat belly and perky little boobs on a photo shoot. We all know that’s thanks to plastic surgery, personal trainers and nutritionists. We also know that’s not everyday life. Not for the vast majority of American women.
Even Ladies Home Journal and Redbook have betrayed us. You used to count on them for a more conservative and realistic look. No more! I want to see a magazine cover with an overweight woman with no makeup on, mismatched clothes and hair mussed up like a Texas twister pushing a buggy full of snot nosed kids around Wal-Mart. Now that’s reality! Or how about an older lady on the beach with flabby everything hanging out of a string bikini. Better yet, how about a younger haggard looking woman pumping gas in pink fuzzy bedroom slippers wearing green Froggy pajama bottoms paired with a bright orange tank top. Now there are a few magazines I’d actually buy!
I’m not making fun! These are the real women out there and I’m proud to be among their ranks! We buy clothes at Wal-Mart and Roses, beauty products and makeup at Family Dollar, get the twelve dollar special at Super Cuts and dye our own hair. We frequent second hand stores and splurge on $2 jewelry at Target. We do our own nails and get massages from the family cat. But I will tell you a little secret-we can also look absolutely fabulous at it. When we do feel like dressing up we can put together a recycled outfit, shine up a cheap pair of heels and got to town with the best of them.
I’d start a magazine just for us but I couldn’t get any advertisers because poor women aren’t where the money is. They’re wrong of course; we spend money, just less of it. Coupon lady is still going at it with the checker up front and I’m already sizing her up for a photo shoot. Yep, that would be my kind of magazine.
We could have articles about the fine art of avoiding bill collectors, how to fix the washing machine with a bobby pin, which grocery store puts sales on meats on which days, best guilt practices for getting your children to help with housework and the fool proof method of breaking the recliner to get stubby hubby off his butt and into the yard or at the dish sink.
Tell you what girls; I’ll try it if you’ll buy it! Coupon lady is moving on out now and I’m slowly passing by the magazine racks and the dream is moving on with it. It was nice while it lasted, but no one would ever publish it. Still, I think it would be a great thing because while glamour or air brushed beauty is nice to behold, its women like us that are the real deal. Here’s to all the women like us!
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Amanda, may I be your first woman for your made up magazine ? Very interesting from the beginning to the end. I enjoyed reading your story.Thanks Hilda! Women like us understand these things!
LOL Amanda! I love it. If you find a publisher, I will subscribe:-) Dare to dream! TeresaAhhhh!! I bow to your kind comments and compliment you on being a member like myself, of the real world!!! God Bless us Everyone and cheers to Women Like Us!! Thank you for your kindness!
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