ArcaMax

Recently I noticed that the shallow lines on my forehead had started to morph into wandering rivers. Since I wear my hair very short, there wasn't really any way to cover them up, and I complained to my husband that I was starting to look old.

"How old do you think you look?" he asked.

"Around 60," I replied.

"You are around 60," he said.

"Yes, but I don't want to look 60."

"What's wrong with looking 60 when you're 60?" he asked.

"I'd rather look 40."

"But you're not 40," he said.

"I know that," I said. "I just want to look younger than I am."

"Just tell everyone you're 70 and they'll think you look really good for your age," he said.

Without two X chromosomes, my husband would never understand my concerns. So I sought out the counsel of my 60-year-old friends who all, mysteriously, happened to have smooth foreheads. They also all had eyebrows that didn't move, but I overlooked that because their foreheads were so smooth. The secret, they said, was to get a shot of botulinum in my face to smooth everything out. I'm not sure why I agreed to inject a known toxic substance into my forehead, but they all seemed pleased with the results, so I decided to give it a shot ... no pun intended.

I made an appointment with a dermatologist and got the shot. Then a funny thing happened. I discovered I had a muscle weakness above one of my eyes that had heretofore gone unnoticed ... until I got the shot. Unfortunately, when the miracle forehead smoother interacted with the secret muscle weakness, it created something worse than small lines in my forehead.

It made one of my eyebrows drop.

So now, instead of looking like a gracefully aging 60-year-old woman, I looked like Mr. Spock.

Naturally, this wasn't really the look I had been going for. I went back to the dermatologist to register my complaint and ask if there was a way to get me to look like a human again instead of a Vulcan. She said there was nothing she could do, and another shot could possibly make it worse. I was stuck that way for six months. Then she held up her hand, told me to "live long and prosper," and sent me on my way to boldly go where no middle-aged woman with a droopy eyebrow had gone before.

I assumed she meant the mall.

I figured I could probably find a solution there, and if not, there was nothing like retail therapy to make you feel better when you look like an alien.

Unfortunately, if I had thought that covering up small forehead lines was hard, covering up a droopy eyebrow was darn near impossible.

First, I tried getting oversized sunglasses to cover the problem. But when I wore them inside, I couldn't see and kept walking into things. Clearly, having a fat lip would not solve the eyebrow problem.

Then I considered getting an eyepatch. But I was pretty sure looking like a pirate wasn't much of an improvement over looking like a Vulcan, plus I would have to walk around saying "argh" and "shiver me timbers" all the time.

Finally, I consulted the smartest woman I know. I called my mom and told her about the shot of botulinum and the droopy eyebrow and Mr. Spock, and after some thoughtful consideration, she came up with the most logical conclusion.

Stay home.

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Tracy Beckerman is the author of the Amazon Bestseller, "Barking at the Moon: A Story of Life, Love, and Kibble," available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online! You can visit her at www.tracybeckerman.com.

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