Remember Andy Rooney, the 60 Minutes writer
who broadcast often witty but cutting essays from his oversized, walnut desk? His segment was called “A Few
Minutes With Andy Rooney.”
Several years ago, I was working on an assignment
for an undergraduate class, Writing Opinion: Editorials and Columns.
The assignment was to write an under 800-word column using humor.
One night, during a long bout with writer's block, Andy Rooney showed up in my bedroom. Really. It was 2:00 a.m., and I
heard this voice ask me in its distinctive nasal tone, “Do you ever wonder why
we (man/woman) need to personify things? “
“Wait. Andy, is that you?” I asked. He continued, as if I wasn’t there:
“Take the Smart Car for instance. Have you
thought about what makes it so smart? Does the Smart Car know logarithms? I
use to. Or what about quadratic formulas? Remember those? It's all a blur to me. Wouldn’t it be great to have a car give you advice on your 401K in the
morning on your way to work while you drink the coffee it bought you for a
discounted price; or wouldn’t it be great to have a car give you ideas for your next column? Maybe it could write your next column? Or pick
your kids up from school? Or your laundry from the dry cleaners? Seems to me if we are going to have Smart Cars they should be able to do all those things anyway. Otherwise, what's the point?"
Two hours later I was sitting in bed working myself
up to a nasal whine talking to myself and asking, “Smart Cars? What makes them so smart?”
Ok, so it was time to put Andy to bed. I
pulled the covers up over my head and compartmentalized Andy Rooney. It
worked. I fell asleep.
The next morning I had a doctor’s
appointment. While I was sitting in the waiting room reading the paper a
headline jumped out at me: Model Dies After Buttocks Surgery.
Andy showed up.
“I have an idea,” he said. “Let’s leave the smart talk behind and go after the asses out there!”
(Andy can be a little rough around the edges
sometimes). He started in:
“What’s all this nonsense about plastic surgery
anyway?” Take Miss Argentina (2009) for example. She died having her butt
enlarged. I don’t get why a beautiful woman who can compete in the world with
other beautiful women needed to change her butt. I mean, what's up with
that? Apparently, nature doesn't do derrieres well."
Right, Andy. So this story stuck in my
head. I thought like Andy: Nature is clueless when it comes to marketing
butts—but (excuse the pun) Man knows better? Ha!
During my research on the story, I read on CNN.com
quotes from a couple of Miss Argentina’s close friends who had responded on
Facebook (get the artificial picture here?) with the news of their “friend’s”
death:
“You couldn’t be any more beautiful,” the first
friend posted.
I could not hold Andy back:
“That’s right. She could NOT be anymore
anything. She died for heaven’s sake.”
Then the other Facebook friend wrote:
“You had to pay with your life.”
Andy resumed:
“And what's this nonsense about paying with her life? She wasn't drafted in to War or anything. I don’t know what the world is coming to
when people put their lives on the line after they have have paid someone, pesos, euros, or dollars, to pump plastic in to their bodies. Or, as in the case of Miss Argentina, into their booties."
Right Andy. She elected to have her butt
enlarged. And yes she probably paid big bucks, excuse me, big pesos, for the big
bootie.
“I saw a picture of Miss Argentina,” Andy
said. “I think she looked pretty good. I was shocked to see she was
thirty-eight though. Well, maybe it's man’s handy-work again. I say
if you look that good on the front, who cares about the back. I have an
idea, from now on beauty pageant contestants should look at behinds that sit for
a living before deciding on plastic surgery. I'm pretty sure they'd feel o.k.
after viewing, for example, writers' butts.”
Well, Andy, had something there. I checked out
the stats on plastic surgery for my article. A few years ago the
staggering numbers between *1997 to 2007 in America showed, “a 457 percent
increase . . . in cosmetic procedures.” In 2007 people between ages of 35 and
50 had 46 percent of the 11.7 million procedures done, but more staggering the
number of people between ages 19 and 34 were coming in second with 21 percent
of the total.
“That's silly,” Andy said.
In 2007 a buttocks enlargement or lift was
$4,885.00. And a lower body lift (yes break some part of your legs in order
to implant something to make you taller) was $8,000.00.
“My shins are splinting,” Andy whined.
“Should we really be spending 13.2 billion a year on getting whole portions of
our bodies lifted? What are we lifting them up from? Do you know you can
go on a plastication, for heaven's sakes?”
Yes, Andy, I know, and Argentina is one of the faves for that sort of plasti-scape. And don’t get me wrong. I’m
not saying plastic surgery is bad. After all, what would people who have
birth defects, breast cancer, or traumatic injuries do without plastic surgery?
“Isn’t that the point?” my friend Andy quiped.
“Taking something that is damaged, for one reason or another, and making it better because it got messed up and it threatens your life or at least your quality of life?”
I believe so Andy. Yes. That is the
point.
You know, Andy, I think I’m ready to go back to the
Smart Car idea for my column after all. Maybe it knows something we don’t
know.
Andy chuckled.
*Updated statistics show (according to the American
Society of Plastic Surgeons Report) that in 2011 Lower Body Lifts were on
the decrease in the U.S. from 7615 in 2011 to 7163 in 2012. Butt augmentations
also decreased from 1149 to 858. Breast implants also showed a decrease in
procedures done from 307,180 in 2011 to 286,274 in 2012.
But, a report from HispanicNews.com (February
26,2014) reports that Americans in 2013 increased bust sizes with Silicone implants,
putting breast implants procedures back up at 1% over the previous year.
And there is an increase in popularity in the U.S. for "buttock
augmentation with fat grafting and neck lifts." Apparently, buttocks
got bigger at 16% over the previous year. The American Society of Plastic
Surgeons 2013 statistical report backs up the numbers.
Just sayin'.
