Today’s my birthday and I’ll whine if I want to. To commemorate getting another year less young I will commence with the annual reciting of this oath. Feel free to join in.

I do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to my advanced middle age years. I will not shun nor hide my number of birthdays but accept the fact that the phrase, “She looks good for her age” is perhaps the best I can hope for.

I do reserve the right to punch anyone in the face who gender blurs me and attempts to negate my femininity with the comment, “She’s a handsome woman.” Which we all know is code for she has a bit of a beard and noticeable ear hair.

I sincerely affirm and declare that I will be faithful in my resolve to attempt to shun a surgeon’s knife as a part of my beauty ritual. I swear in the years ahead to not become obsessed with having my boobs inflated and cantilevered to a higher altitude. I know in my heart that no woman’s chest should be so ferociously elevated that her breasts create a book shelf for her chin.

I give you my word that I will not become possessed with having the prettiest hooha money can buy. This includes vajazzling – the ritual of gluing shiny things to a freshly waxed surface located south of the border. I pledge to not take a 10x magnifying mirror and go deep undercover to assess the attractiveness factor of my panty adjacent parts.

I will resist any and all advertising campaigns and peer pressure to return my “personal space” to it’s “virginal state” by having procedures done that sound like a combination of car mechanic and landscaping terms as in: clitoral hood reduction, labia shaping, labia trimming, and vagina rejuvenation with undercoating.

I promise to remain strong and never let fellow middle-aged women make me feel ashamed of my “stuff” by mocking me about my non-vajazzle grooming practices and making the 21st century Socratic comment that a “vajazzle is like putting lipstick on a pig if you don’t have your parts refreshed.”

I vow that the word “injectables” will not become part of my daily lexicon. I will be steadfast in my resolve when I go to the dermatologist for my yearly “Stroll Down Mole Lane” to not fall prey to the youth fever sales pitch. My face will be able to move! Mainly because I want the world at large to know when I’m really ticked off.

I will do my utmost to resist injecting my own fanny fat into my face, ditto for arsenic and other poisons or potions that are packaged and clearly marked with a skull and crossbones. I will also attempt to steer clear of the holy trinity of acid based fillers (Restylane, Juvederm, Radiesse) or shooting up with any part of a cow to smooth out laugh lines and forehead frowns or transform my lips from slim to portly.

Although, I do enjoy the magic of make-up I promise to never use any cosmetic that could be confused with a basement remodel as in: primers, sealers, spackle or foundation spray.

I guarantee that I, not now nor ever, will make it my goal to be a MILF. Since I wasn’t a GILF in high school or college I sincerely doubt I would ever be granted access to the MILF sorority. Furthermore, since the designation AMA (advanced maternal age) is on both of my pregnancy medical files I know I have passed the acceptable age limit for any sort of sexual innuendo that would, at best, be considered disturbing even for the criminally insane. I will stand proud in the knowledge that I have enough going in my life that I don’t seek and/or covet attention from male children who attend high school to make me feel good about myself.

I pledge to not go gently into the “I’m giving up” zone of late middle age. I will rage against mom jeans, the wearing of elastic waist pants for every occasion and I forever pledge myself as a warrior in the fight against socks with sandals.

But, I also give my allegiance to good taste and stand firm in not: showing butt crack, thong, visible nipple, extreme cleavage or belly button when I pick my children up from school, attend school and/or extra curricular events, (including, but not limited to parent/teacher conferences) or go to the grocery store.

On my honor as a mother I swear that I will never, in the years ahead, have to tell my children that their college tuition for next semester looks “iffy” because I dropped some major coin on a vaginal rejuv with an emphasis on a retro hymen procedure.

I further promise never to utter this phrase, send this statement in either an e-mail or text format or use as a Facebook status update while typing at my desk in a mini-thong so my vajazzle can air: “My hooha is back to full virgin and I got me some epic toxy resty-juv. Bonus – my boobs are so high I can wipe my nose on them.”

So help me God.

*Attention Snarky Friends, I have a brand new book out. It’s the second in the Snarky in the Suburbs series – Snarky in the Suburbs Trouble In Texas. You can buy it for your Kindle or in paperback on Amazon.  It’s also available for the Nook or you can get it for your Kobo reader. Click on a link and give it a test read.  I hope you like it! 🙂