Old People Shit: Menopause, Turkey Necks, and the Dreaded FUPA

What the hell is going on under here?

Something women have to look forward to when they get older is menopause. A lot of women mourn the loss of their fertility when the babymaker stops working, but I for one welcomed it. I never had kids and didn’t have that “once more for old times’ sake” yearning, and I always had the hormones from Hell and everything that went along with them--epic PMS, horrible periods, and migraines that laid me out for days at a time. So I was really happy to see that shit go bye bye.

But there are things about it that are not so great.

For one thing, a lot of women gain weight. I was always very slim. Then I hit the wall of menopause head on--BANG!--the airbags deployed, and they never went down. I used to be able to eat anything and not gain an ounce; I could eat a side of beef, belch up a hoof, and gain nothing. Now fat sticks to me like baby shit sticks to a bedroom wall. If I so much as smell something greasy or high sodium, I blow up like a tick.

I gained it all in the abdomen, through the bust, and under my chin, where I have amassed an impressive collection of secondary chins, should I find myself in need of one at some later time. My ass is still as flat as a board, thanks to genetics on my mother’s side, but I make up for it out front. 

My father's side of the family is responsible for the chins. They are extreme overachievers in that department. Not a graceful swan neck to be found in that lineage, just a bunch of turkeys. 

No relation of mine.

There we go.

Our house backs up to a canal, and I swear to God I had a bullfrog sing me the song of his people when I was on the patio one day. Believe me, nothing will motivate you to put down the ice cream like being serenaded by a horny bullfrog that picks you as the object of his affection.

Hey baby, feelin' lucky tonight?

And what really pisses me off is that if Matt gets on the scale and doesn’t like what he sees, he just eats one less potato chip with lunch for a week and he’s down five pounds. If I got lost in the woods with nothing to eat but leaves and berries for a week, I might lose five pounds--but four of those would be from the giant load I’d dump the first time something rustled the bushes after dark.

Then there's the dreaded FUPA.

If you don't know what that is, it's the saggy, apron-like thing that now hangs between your hips where your nice flat belly lived before age, receding hormones, and gravity got ahold of it and gave it a yank. The technical name for it is the panniculus, but it's more commonly known as the FUPA, or Fat Upper Pubic Area (or Fat Upper P***y Area, if you prefer).

Yeah you are.

Personally, I like to call it the Fat Upper Pudendal Area. Nobody really uses the word pudenda anymore, and I think that's a shame. It's a really fun word.