The Virginian-Pilot
© March 29, 2005
Last updated: 6:21 PM

UNCLE BILL heard our kids were in sports and shipped off a pair of state-of-the-art stadium seats that very Christmas. The innards could be pulled out and microwaved, guaranteeing a warm seat for the entire game. Except our kids never played a sport that required a warm seat. Ever ruthless with my discards, I sold those seats nine years later at a garage sale. And now ... my word, now I miss them so.Because somehow as I have gotten older, I’ve frozen my rear end off. Literally.My backside is not there any more. I know I used to have a rear end. It held up my diaper in ’65. It was hangin’ out of my skirt when I was on the drill team in ’83. I remember shaking it as recently as New Year’s Eve 1999.Yet now I have no booty. I am doomed to be bootyless, never bootylicious. I have so much room in the backside of my jeans you could pack me with a suitcase and still zip up. Oh, that’s wrong. What used to be back there has migrated up front. Weird. It seems like a very strange place to have aged. I expect my face to get crinkled, my hands to look more veiny . I just thought I’d have my rear end with me always.I don’t know why I thought that. No other woman in my family could give Beyonce or J.Lo a run for her money. Now I know why my grandmother sat on that needlepoint pillow to drive. It wasn’t because she was too short for the wheel, but because she was afflicted with Disappearing Heiny.Well, leave it to modern medicine to fix what ails ya. Now they have introduced a new plastic surgery: buttock implants. Where I would never go for Botox or a facelift or lyposuction or augemented anything else, this surgery somehow makes perfect sense to me. Especially if the implant is microwaveable. Not only could I sit in the bleachers for hours, but I would be able to see over the head of an 8-year-old at the movies, too. Could there really be a plastic surgery in this world that was actually about comfort instead of beauty? Women don’t do enough for comfort. We’ve always done whacky stuff for beauty. We broke the bones in our feet so they could be shaped like lotus blossoms. We strapped into corsets that shifted the position of our internal organs. Now the ideal is a size 00 girl with giant breasts. And a booty.I’ve never understood why anyone would be willing to go under the knife for beauty. For health, certainly. For comfort, yeah. But not for mere beauty. For health, I’d do anything. For comfort I’d be willing to have little pads implanted right in front of my funny bones. Fuzzy slippers could be permanently attached to my feet. I could even have my ears enlarged until they form perfect pillows for either side of my head. I’m sleepy a lot of the time.The rest of the world isn’t with me on this. Even the Websites for my buttock implant say this is a surgery for men and women who want to improve the lift and projection and shape of their hindquarters. The implant doesn’t even affect how you sit because the contouring is done above the seat. It’s one of those old-fashioned bustles, only this time you stick in on the inside.Which is just too bad. I guess I will have to wait patiently for the ideal of beauty to change again. I just hope they don’t wait too long. I’m not going to be able to sit here forever.

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