Now they’re lots stinkier than they were back when I was in charge of hosing them down. I think my old showerhead died of despair.

I needed a new one, but the Home Depot guy was getting kind of personal about it.

“Before I can recommend a hand-held model, I need to know something,” he said. “What do you DO in your shower?”

“Hunh? I, uh … I … shower… in the shower.”

“And?”

It was just such a weird question. What do people do with hand-held showerheads in showers besides shower? Before I knew it, I was blushing.

“I, uh … I … wash the dog! Really!”

“Umm hmmm?”

He wanted more?

“I … I use the hand-held to wash the shower walls down!”

“Ummm hmmmm?”

“And, I, um, shower?”

He looked at me carefully. “Do you shave your legs?”

I didn’t know this guy from Adam, and here he was quizzing me about my hygiene. I crossed my arms in front of my chest. Just then the store air conditioners went off — the heat radiating off my face probably tripped the thermostat.

“Um, yeah, well, yeah. I do that, too.”

Satisfied, he turned. “Okay. Then I recommend these models over here.” He waved at a small selection in the corner of the display. “Anything else I can help you with?”

I shook my head, even though I was also supposed to get a new toilet seat. There’s only so much grilling a woman can take at the hardware store.

“It’s supposed to fit tight,” Witt called out from behind the door. “Like a second skin.”

Second skin my chicharones. This baby was tighter than my first skin, twenty pounds ago. The truth is, wetsuits are nothing but full-body pantyhose on steroids.

I cracked open the dressing room door. “Where are my kids?”

“See for yourself!” Witt said proudly, indicating two neoprene-clad figures bouncing alongside the rash guards. Not only did the boys squeak into their wetsuits at Warp 8, they could move freely in them.

My wetsuit wasn’t past my knees yet but I could already tell I wouldn’t do much more than waddle once I got it on.

“Uh,” I told Witt, “I need more time.”

He understood. “No problem,” he said. “Hey, boys, want some free stickers for your boards?”

I liked that guy. In fact, I was trying on his wetsuits because of his friendly and knowledgeable attitude. (Translation: he was the first surf shop salesman I met older than the used wetsuits he was selling.)

Ten minutes later I was slick with perspiration, but the wetsuit refused to budge past my hips. Defeat was imminent.

I cracked the door open again. “Witt, I’m just too big to boogie board.”

You would’ve thought I uttered a foul heresy. “No,” Witt said grimly. “I won’t believe it. Mind if I take a look?”

I guess I didn’t. The lower part of me was squished into the world’s largest girdle. The upper was still modestly covered by my swimsuit. And Witt is a pretty decent guy, like a friendly big brother surfer, if you happen to have one.

I opened the door and he examined my semi-metamorphosed state: half-woman, half-wetsuit.

“Not bad!” he crowed. “You got farther than most first-timers.”

“Really?” I felt better immediately.

“Sure! Now pull that flap up over your left knee.”

I pulled. He pointed out another flap and I jerked on that one. I sweated, pulled and jerked with his step-by-step coaching until I wrenched into the arms.

Unfortunately, I was stuck in a crouched position, unable to straighten up.

“It’s hopeless,” I insisted.

“There’s only one way to do this,” he answered, and I knew what he meant. Swallowing my modesty, I grabbed the doorpost with both hands.

“Pardon me,” said Witt, and grabbed the fold of neoprene hanging south of my derriere. He pulled hard — both my feet flew right off the floor.

My Great Aunt Lottie probably would not have approved of wetsuits.

My great Aunt Lottie performed a similar maneuver in order to lace her customers into corsets. As they sucked in their breath, they could read the crewel sampler hanging on her dress shop wall: “What the Lord hath forgotten, we shall fill out with cotton.”

In the case of my rear end, the Lord hath remembered too much.

I replanted my feet. “Ready!”

He jerked again and I was completely in the suit. Contrary to my expectations, I could move.

I made my way to the rash guards, where the boys stopped frolicking to look me over. All that rubber-coated activity, and they still looked as cool as cucumbers.

“Yeah! Mom!” said the oldest. My youngest took some time before he finally nodded. “Cool!”

High praise, coming from the Style Kings of Carlsbad.

“I’ll take it!” I said.

That afternoon the three of us boogied in the surf, me blessing Witt with every wave I caught. If you can package your bacon for the beach, you can do anything.

Hot and smoggy and me stuck in L.A. traffic on the I-5. The exhaust fumes were so bad I had to roll up the windows. And since I couldn’t run the air conditioner without overheating the car, the air just got thicker.

I turned up the radio but after a few seconds it was drowned out by someone who pulled up beside me, someone with a loud, mufferless engine that made my ribs vibrate like our washing machine on the final spin cycle.

For a moment I wondered if I’d been squished by an 18-wheeler and deposited in a Hell staffed by demons on mufferless Harleys. If so, it looked a heck of a lot like the I-5 on a smoggy summer day in stop-and-go traffic.

But no, I wasn’t in Hell, just the I-5. And as I waited patiently for the chopper to pass so I could more fairly question the owner’s ancestry… I realized the chopper demon wasn’t a HE, but a SHE.

She finally pulled up ahead of me and I could breathe again without rattling ribs. The picture is blurry because I was moving and my windshield was dirty (the bees are swarming in Carlsbad) but you can still see what I saw: a woman who waits for nothing and no one.

Me, I’ve spent my life waiting to lose some more weight before I do stuff like go to a pool party and actually go swimming, but I’ll bet this gal goes swimming at ALL her pool parties, and wears the tiniest bikini she can find—maybe even a THONG.

Frankly, she appears to be the kind of woman who told the world the hell with it, I’m gonna get me some tattoos and a tube top and some low-rider jeans and the biggest, baddest Harley sold in America today, and while I’m at it, the hell with the damn muffler, too.

Nobody gets in front of her at in the “9 items or less” line with 32 items and a fistful of expired coupons, nobody whips into the parking space at the mall that she was waiting for, and nobody EVER dings her van when she’s sitting inside it waiting for kids to finish swim team.

And even though I was taking a picture because it would last longer, I knew she could easily poke my eye out with her little finger if she was so inclined—so I didn’t spend any time trying to get the perfect shot. I just put the camera back into the bag and continued my stopping and going on the I-5, all the while wondering how big my butt would look on a Harley.

When the kids went out yesterday afternoon, Hubby and I locked the doors, turned down the lights, and … put in the DVD of Sin City.

Yowza! I’d heard it was violent and it was, but nobody told me about the Jiggle Factor. Let’s just say Hubby was enthralled. Lots of lucious boobalas and bottoms all over the screen—enough to make a forty-something housewife sigh as she remembers her forgotten resolution to work out regularly.

My favorite lines came from Marv:

Wendy: You could’ve taken my gun away from me any time you wanted to…

Marv: I probably would’ve had to paste you one getting the gun and I don’t hurt dames.

We need more movies that use the term “dames.”

Hubby’s Greatest Moment:

(Carla Gugino makes her appearance as the lesbian probation officer/pharmacist, wearing nothing but a thong and a concerned expression)

Hubby: Hmmm. That girl needs to do some squats.

It’s a safe bet Eric and Katie were already dating when he put up this sign, and his asking was just a formality.

But sometimes when I drive by I imagine Eric is the bravest, most romantic soul on campus, that he liked Katie from afar and decided to put himself out there for all the world to see.

This is a scary scenario, even for a middle-aged suburban mom light-years away from prom and driving home to a mountain of dirty laundry. What if Katie turned him down?

But then I remind myself that Eric is confident and brave, and this romantic gesture endears him in the hearts of all the other girls, who then ask him to the prom. And so he goes (with at least five girls) and they all have a blast.

And sometimes I imagine Eric was a cad who dumped Katie and broke her heart, and when her best friend heard he was going to ask a girl who wasn’t as nice as Katie, she put this sign up to make the new girl mad at Eric.

And sometimes I think I need to take a different carpool route.