The boy and I were driving to town last night, listening to a mix CD. He wanted to know how his Uncle Jon could play all the instruments and sing on a record all by himself, so I explained. He thought for a minute and said, “Mommy, do you remember when you showed me that guy who could play three horns at once?”

It was a few months ago, but hell yeah I remember.

“Do you think Uncle Jon could do that?”

“No,” he said gravely.

“Probably not.”

“But I could!”

Cool!

Just then his grandma called and I passed the phone back to him.

“Grandma, guess what! When I get bigger I’m going to play three saxophones at the same time! … Yeah!… And if I get good at that, I’m gonna play three basses!”

Ladies and gentlemen, my son. Destined to be either a jazz legend or a one-man tribute to Spinal Tap’s “Big Bottom.”

I am not, you’ll be fascinated to learn, a brand loyalist when it comes to deodorant. I don’t have any unusual needs in that area, so I buy what’s on sale and doesn’t smell perfumey.

Just a few weeks back, I noticed that Degree was rather nicer than the others, in that it does not feel all pinchy going on. So that’s it, thought I, I am buying Degree from now on.

Wouldn’t you know, within minutes of my making this decision Degree went all gender-segregated. While I’m more sympathetic for the consternation this might cause my acquaintances who aren’t exactly straight down that M/F divide, even I as a clearly delineated woman have problems with this.

You know what Degree Men does? It protects men who takes risks. BAD ASS. If you are human-flying it up the side of a skyscraper and you lose your grip, Degree Men’s Action Fumes(TM) will suck you back to safety like a huge magnet. At some point in that story, I started making shit up, but it was a tiny bit later than one would hope.

At this point, I’m pretty stoked, as you can imagine. What will Degree Women protect me from? Maybe I can have another baby now without all that pesky hyperemesis and Restless Leg Syndrome and whatever that thing that made me itch until I wished I were dead was! Let’s take a look at Degree Women’s tagline – oh my!

Dare to Feel.

DARE. to FEEL.

Dare to feeeeeeeeeeeeeeel.

Yeah. Somewhat ironically, I’m not feelin’ it.

My simple, clear-cut consumer plan now contains a spanner in its works. Because it’s going to be embarrassing going to the drugstore and buying that. And yet – not pinchy.

So I did it the other day. I looked at the array of different Degree for Women varieties and yeah, they were just as sexist and eyeroll-inducing as you’d think. EXCEPT. There was one style that came in the girl-deodorant equivalent of a plain brown wrapper – pale-blue with the word “Women” on it in a discreet light gray. I bought it, naturally, but couldn’t help wondering if it hadn’t been the result of a meeting on how a lot of women were going to find this “Dare to Feel” thing embarrassing, offensive, or both – so let’s throw ‘em a bone. Is it worse if they KNOW they’re being condescending? I’m not sure.

The next day, I saw another deodorant in our bathroom from an angle I usually don’t, and learned this: “If you don’t know whether or not you have an iron, you are a Mitchum Man.”

You guys.

I’m a Mitchum Man.

You know what this means, don’t you?

Had I seen this two days earlier, I could have been protected while I took risks.

Sometimes life’s just not fair.

NINE.

I keep reading them over and thinking I sound like Grandpa Simpson. Which is not my intention.

I’ll be back soon, promise. In the meantime, who’s watching The Amazing Race? Looks like a good one this year. I’m fully rooting for Mike and Mel White, but there are a couple other teams I could easily get behind if tragic circumstance decreed that necessity.

And on American Idol, I’m behind Adam Lambert, who is not really my sort of thing musically but is so over-the-top good at his sort of thing that I have to admire it.

Let’s talk TV. Save me from old-codger rantiness. I’d do it for you.

Guess what time it was last week?

First mammogram time!

Frankly, I was annoyed more than anything; I’m in zero cancer risk groups, and I have a longstanding theory – which there’s quite a lot of evidence behind by now – that while I am enormously susceptible to diseases that make you WISH you were dead, I will never get one that stands a chance of actually killing me. This is not hubris but wistfulness, if you’ve read correctly.

So if I come back here and tell you the test was positive, you can feel free to laugh at me. I realize it will seem inappropriate, but do it anyway. I’ll have earned it.

I had heard that it was going to hurt, a lot. It probably did, actually, but not nearly as much as I thought. Or it WOULDN’T HAVE…

For the uninitiated, they basically smash your boobs flat between two flat plates, from several angles, and take a picture. While things were being “positioned” for the shot from the side, I noticed but did not comment on one of those plates poking into my collarbone.

Women who are one or more years younger than I: If you notice? Comment on. If you don’t, see, you end up with one of your bones being smashed between two big heavy things with a crapload of pressure behind them. This sucks.

But not QUITE as much as my Extremely Meek Childhood Self making an unwelcome reappearance and reacting as such: “Oh, that hurts. Well, it’ll only be another second or two; I don’t think the bone will break. I just won’t say anything.”

Oh, Extremely Meek Childhood Self. You suck SO HARD. Although I suppose it would have been an amusing conversation piece, to come out of a routine medical test in a cast. Ha ha ha.

The other thing I noticed, which is quite minor compared to the whole bone-crushing potential, is that it was the weirdest and most awkward use of hospital gowns ever. You put it on tied in the front (which in this particular model didn’t, you know, work) and then do all this elaborate removing and folding and tucking to expose the current patient. Then you cover that side up and do the whole routine over again.

OK.

Nobody has ever accused me of being an exhibitionist.

But honestly, if you’ve already got one bosom out in the open air, is it really more traumatic to have ‘em both on temporary display? My vote: No. Perhaps you could fill out a little card about whether you prefer increased exposure to uncomfortable contortion?

I hope we have all learned something today. I know I probably haven’t.