Bad Botox Bites

Paul : I hate pain. Go away. 

Colleague : Maybe just a shot. 

Paul : No. 

Colleague : Just a teensy shot next to the eyebrow. Won't hurt a bit. 

Paul : Get that needle away. 

Colleague : A bit of practice please!

Paul : No. 

Colleague : It will look good, I swear. 

Paul : I like my wrinkles. 

Colleague : Double eyelid then? 

Just one of the odd conversations I once had with a colleague in plastic surgery. With youth and beauty always in demand by our disgracefully aging clients, many of my junior compatriots ( read gay ) have opted out for the ever-lucrative niche of aesthetic medicine. Working under the auspices of preternaturally smooth-faced, youthful peers who presumably sup on virgin blood during the full moon, they have slowly been brainwashed into the erroneous ideology that aging is a debilitating disease meant to be battled hard with all the modern medical weapons at our disposal.

Left to their devices, wrinkles would be a dire medical emergency demanding an entire crew of physicians and surgeons equipped with Botox injections and razor-sharp scalpels at the ready.

So having dinners with them turns into an immediate show-and-tell of every possible youth-enhancing anti-aging procedure known to man - from placenta to collagen - and some wild newfangled inventions I've frankly never heard of. Followed by a brief but thoroughly excruciating half hour of pointing out every possible flaw on my oddly lopsided face that could easily benefit from just that little filler implant. 

Or three. 

Make than ten. Usually ending with the earnest suggestion that I immediately book an appointment at the nearest plastic surgeon. 

Fortunately I do know my face is shockingly askew - and like the proverbial Humpty Dumpty, even all the king's horses and all of his men wouldn't be able to set it right. And that's alright by me. 

Just one more magic laser and it'll be that much more perfect. 

Unlike one of Prudent Patrick's coterie of closeted comrades who finds himself immediately taken with all that aesthetic sales spiel. The poker-faced Gordon Gray. If there's anyone who would serve as a cautionary tale not to indulge in a bargain Botox blowout, that would be him. Rather than allow that single wrinkle to mar his sublime visage, Gordon had himself locked up in the closest aesthetics clinic to experiment with their entire rejuvenating buffet resulting in a shockingly expressionless mask-like face.

Think frozen. Even a smile is getting hard to find.

I mean, is it too much to ask to grow old gracefully?