I love senior citizens. Listening to their stories of “the good ol’ days,” the great recipes that without them, would be lost forever and for their ability to get away with doing anything in public and not being the least bit embarrassed. Take farting, for example. A taboo subject to most, but, if you’re 75, at the grocery store and have to let one rip, by golly you do. Sure, others may snicker, but how many of us are going to walk up to that 75 year old man and say, “You’re disgusting.”- hopefully no one. This is the reason why I said nothing to my neighbor, who is 83, when she was in her snap-up house dress, on her front porch one afternoon last week.

This happened 2 days after the “dismissal” from my job. When I’m bored, I’ll clean and I decided I needed to wipe the blinds in my living room. One window faces her front porch and as I wipe each blade, I look out the window-when I see her walk out, in freezing weather I might add, in nothing but her house-coat. You know the kind- the only kind old ladies wear. Thin, either zip-up or snap-up and if you’ve ever wondered if they wear anything underneath- the answer is a solid no. She had a small plastic container in her hand, reached in and started tossing bird seed. My first thoughts were, “Great, now I’ll have bird crap on my back porch,”-then I stopped in mid-thought. I don’t know if it was the cold weather, lack of oxygen to her brain, or if she suddenly remembered she had boobs and hell yeah, it feels damn good to have them touched, and this is exactly what she started doing.

“Ok, she’s having a self-exploratory experience on her porch,” I said to myself. “Good for her.”

Then, she did it. Something I’ve never considered doing because well, for one I’ve never thought of it, and two- I wasn’t aware they could smell.

She un-snapped two snaps on her housecoat, reached in, pulled her left boob over to the right and sniffed it. No, not just the top- underneath. I kept staring. I wasn’t sure if I should be ashamed for watching, or amazed that she could lift her boob far enough to sniff under it. I have no idea what prompted her to do such a thing, outside, in the public eye, (ok so no one was outside as far as I know, but I was watching from my living room window, which either makes me a sicko, or, a researcher for women around the world). After a few quick sniffs, she tucked the boob back into her housecoat and walked inside.

Was this some sort of old-woman brain lapse? She was feeding birds, is this a new secret way of bird calling that nature lovers need to know? What was she sniffing for? Yes, I did attempt to sniff under both boobs. I can’t lift mine up far enough and bend my head down at the same time. This, my friends, is a talent only an old woman may possess. And I can guarantee that 90% of the women who read this post will try to sniff under their boobs.


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