Ma’am

from The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love

by Jill Conner Browne

I don’t feel like a ma’am. But apparently I look like one, and that’s worse.  I totally agree with that guy who said “It’s better to look good than to feel good”. All of a sudden, when I take my hair down, I don’t look like a flower child anymore.  I look like Loretta Lynn.  And this is not a good look—for Loretta or for me.  Not to mention that there are big steaks of gray everywhere in my hair, but the last time I checked, Loretta was still using boot-black on hers so, whatever.

I don’t even know when I crossed the line into ma’am-hood.  I wasn’t paying attention and never saw it coming.  Now, whenever they hire new men in the weight room where we work out, they always call us “ma’am”—at least until we threaten to rip their tongues out and feed them to our cats.

No sir.  We only want to be called “ma’am” if it is preceded by, “wham, bam” and a polite “thank you”.