“I don’t know Doctor, I used to be so, well, just so darned popular. Everyone loved me, especially people who were maybe a bit older. Seniors? They just loved me, and it seemed like they just couldn’t get enough of me – my tops, my bottoms, and most especially my matching tops and bottoms. They used to pinch me and say that they liked how I never showed my wrinkles – it always made me feel so … so youthful, and well, so sexy. I don’t like to use that word with you, Doctor, but that’s kind of how I felt back then.
“Even men, you know? Even they thought I was something, something really special. They just couldn’t get enough of me in a Safari suit. And now, well, Doc, now I just feel lost. Well, maybe not so much lost, as ignored. Being ignored? It’s worse than being rejected, at least in some ways it is.
“Oh sure, I can be a closet queen as well as the next gal, but it’s hard when you remember all the good times – the parties, and the bridge clubs, and the bus trips. I think it was the bus trips I liked the best. Everyone all decked out, and in such high spirits. Not a wrinkle in the crowd, and everything just so darned durable! I shouldn’t brag, but I really was indestructible! I had no worries about my beauty fading, or about getting all stretched out. I knew no matter what, I wouldn’t shrink - you know, I lived in a perfect worry-free sort of world.
“I just don’t understand how I could be so great back then, and how I could be so, oh, I dunno, hated now? Is that the word I want, Doctor? Hated? Could I really be hated because of all my great characteristics? Or maybe the word I want is ‘scorned’. My sister, Gabardeenia, used to tell me, ‘Polly, just ignore it! They’re just jealous, so don’t pay them no mind! Who else but you could go in and out of a suitcase and be none the worse for wear? You just gotta forget what they say! Your time will come back again, you’ll see.’
“Do you think that will happen, Doctor? Do you think my time will come back again? I have to think that’s going to happen, that I’ll be popular again, and be seen in all the stores, and at all the best parties. I can’t see how that won’t happen. I feel pretty sure about it. Anyway, if you could just refill my pills, Doctor, that should get me through this slump. The Prozac seems to be helping, I’m not crying so much these days. It’s a good thing I don’t stain easily, Doctor, it’s a good thing. And at my age, I haven’t got even one single solitary wrinkle, so I think if I just stick with the Prozac, I’ll make it through. And Doctor, just in case, could you put about 20 repeats on that prescription? Just in case, you know, just in case…”
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