By Lisa
You have heard the myth of Sisyphus, the Greek king who was required to roll a massive boulder up a mountain, and when it reached the top, it would roll down to the bottom, so he had to start all over again, an endless exercise in futility.
So obviously we’re talking about moisturizing your legs.
Don’t ask me when I started moisturizing my legs, but it was back when I actually cared.
I would shave my legs and moisturize them, because that was something you were supposed to do.
We’re talking my twenties, thirties, and forties, and I used a variety of leg moisturizers. Those were the years I was married and divorced and married and divorced, so there was probably some correlation, the common denominator being that a man was seeing my legs, even if it was a man I loved and/or hated.
In any event, I got very happily single, and while I was dating, I kept my legs as smooth as a Barbie doll. I was looking for Ken, and though I didn’t find him, I found an array of better things to do with my time. But I have to admit, my personal grooming fell down, limbwise.
I didn’t always shave my legs, especially in winter, when I was not only celibate, but freezing.
Still, I moisturized my legs every day, on girl autopilot.
But then in my fifties, I stopped doing even that, even on special occasions, like if I had a book signing.
God bless pants.
And today’s the day that I might stop moisturizing my legs.
I’m looking at them with new eyes. And I’m thinking of Sisyphus.
Because the bottom line is that I’m fifty-nine years old and I’ve been moisturizing my legs for as long as I can remember, and it doesn’t seem to be working. Don’t tell me the difference is the product. In my student days, I used drugstore products, and then, when I made more money, I started buying moisturizers in the department store, thinking they would be better.
They weren’t.
The only difference was that department-store moisturizing creams were called crèmes, so they may have worked for the French, but not for me.
I wised up and went back to the drugstore, where I bought a big white tub of good old Cetaphil, which is not coincidentally shaped like a rolling boulder.
They should call it Cetaphus.
Because the bottom line is, what purpose is all this moisturizing serving?
If you have to moisturize your legs every day, what is getting moisturized?
And why isn’t it staying that way?
And if it isn’t staying moisturized, which it obviously isn’t, then why bother?
It puts me in mind of some advice Martha Stewart gave somewhere, with respect to basting a turkey. Her cooking tip was that basting a turkey has no effect whatsoever. She said the moistness of the meat depended completely on how the turkey was raised and fed, then whether it was overcooked or not.
So you see the analogy.
Turkeys aren’t moisturized by basting.
Women aren’t either.
Maybe it lasts for a day, but that’s not long enough for me.
That’s why I don’t make my bed anymore.
So if I’ve stopped making my bed, I should stop moisturizing my legs.
I’ve only been feeling this more strongly as I’ve gotten older and my skin has changed so much.
And it’s not just that they’ve gone from dry to Sahara.
The other day, I looked down at my legs and didn’t recognize them as mine.
Or as even human.
They were positively scaly.
There are fish with better legs.
Oh, wait.
Okay, dragons.
Not only that, but they’re insanely ashy.
The Bible says we came from dust and to dust we shall return.
But so soon?
Still, there’s truth in the wisdom of the ancients.
I don’t mean me.
I mean the Bible and the Greek myths.
You can’t beat Father Time with a tub of grease.