Open Letter to Isaac Newton

Dear Mr. Newton,

I don't typically write about "personal" things but today is different. Being 50, every day I am reminded of your "science-changing" discovery. I mean really. Gravity?!? Come. ON!!! Thanks to you, my lovely facial structure is a thing of the past. The rosy cheeks I once had in my youth have migrated to the underside of my jawline. Instead of my Welsh/German/ English heritage being most evident by softly sculptured cheeks and patrician facial features, now I just look like a dang greedy chipmunk storing up food for the winter in its pouchy jowls. My other, er...um... cheeks used to garner compliments that would make me blush, but now they have taken up residence at a much lower altitude these days. Thanks to you, I'll be needing walking shorts pretty soon just to be decent in public. I went jogging yesterday and thought some one was running right on my heels, until I realized the 'whap-pa-ta, whap-whap-pa-ta" sound I was hearing was my below-sea-level mudflaps hitting the backs of my thighs. Way to go, Isaac! And let us not forget the inevitable, a woman's worst enemy, thanks to that big fat Red Delicious taking a bounce off your noggin. The air has certainly gone out of my tires.....and if you don't understand the analogy, well you been in the lab a liiiiitle too long. Let me tell you something, Mister. It's pretty bad when your mammo tech takes one look at your attributes, before placing your precious parts in that glorified drill press, and asks "Um, do you have implants?" A quick opening of the gown illicits a pitiful look from said mammo tech along with a mummur of "Oooooooohhhh, guess not." I reckon a picture's worth a thousand words. You could have come up with a better idea than Gravity. How about a Helium Brassiere? You could have called it the "Up, Up and Away". Or here's a thought- How about a simple jogging bra for the blessed amoung us, huh? WHY is that so hard? You science brainiacs can split the atom, and put people in space, but you can't come up with something that Paula Petralunga can jog in without looking like a freakshow or appear as if she is smuggling two small piglets under her wick-away shirt. (Obviously the heartfelt letter to Under Armour did NOT work.) Why couldn't you have discovered a way to DEFY gravity? There's a money-maker! Then every woman would love you. But instead we all have to find ways to lift, shift, undergird and overlay all sorts of things just to fight that never-ending gravitational pull!! History says that perhaps you died of mercury poisoning due to all of your strange experiments. But I wonder if you might have been strangled by an irate woman with a whale-boned corset or two...

Thanks from the bottom of MY EVERYTHING,

Nan