Dear Editor,

This is the first time I’ve ever written a “letter to the editor.” Though I must confess I’m not a subscriber to your newspaper, I have been known to peruse its contents at the library. I am a big fan of the in-depth coverage you provide of the Saturday night races at our local “speedway.” And ever since my social media accounts were suspended (for various unfounded reasons too trivial to mention), your “police blotter” provides a means for me to keep up with the various goings-on of my friends, coworkers, and former classmates.

I am also extremely grateful for the selection of fast-food coupons you provide via the Sunday circulars, which I am on occasion able to procure if I’m the first patron at the library on Monday morning. Oftentimes, Mrs. Clara Berkshire “beats me to the punch,” as it were, but I try not to hold that against her, as she is both morbidly obese and perpetually depressed (on account of her recently acquired status as a widow), both conditions which predispose her to “love that chicken from Popeyes” even more than I do, which is indeed saying something! 

I am writing in hopes that you can help me. Long story short, I recently made a “connection” at a local place of business, and I’m desperate to find her. I realize your paper’s editorial page isn’t the place one would normally “put the word out” for something like this, but I’m hoping you’ll make an exception and “play Cupid” just this once, as I’ve recently been suspended from Craigslist (a gross misunderstanding that will hopefully soon be remedied). Even if that weren’t the case, I think my intended audience of one is much more likely to see my impassioned appeal here than she would on the “internet.” 

I’m told it’s a rare and beautiful thing to find “the one.” To find her and lose her? Well, I can’t imagine the magnitude of such a tragedy. (I suppose I could ask Mrs. Berkshire, but I’d have to catch her in one of her brief respites between Oreo binge-fests in the back corner by the autobiographies, and that’s no small feat.)  

I implore you to publish the following heartfelt letter in the hopes that it will reach my beloved and that my oft-broken heart may find its forever companion. Many thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Raymond J. Adcock Jr.

***

Dear Kroger Lady,

Our society is obsessed with youth. Everywhere I look, I see images of toned young women in tight clothing, skimpy clothing, or nothing but underclothing dancing around, bouncing, and selling aforementioned tight clothing, skimpy clothing, or underclothing. Or perfume. Or cars. Or beer. Or exercise equipment. Or mattresses. You name it and I can show you an ad with “sexy” young women batting their eyes, purring, and thrusting at you to get you to buy it.

Frankly, I’m sick of it, Kroger Lady. If one were to take these advertisements to heart, only women from the ages of about 18 to 29 would be considered desirable. That’s a twelve-year span. Twelve years out of a lifetime. What about experience? What about maturity? Don’t those count for anything?

Well, they do to me, Kroger Lady.

They can keep their “pretty young things.” Give me experienced. Give me mature. Give me downright elderly. Sure, I card my women—and if it ain’t AARP, she ain’t for me!

You want to know what sexy is? It’s not 20-year-old girls with painted-on jeans and revealing skin-tight crop tops. It’s women like you, Kroger Lady. Weathered women in their golden years, wearing loud, baggy wind suits while working out to worn-out VHS tapes of “Sit and Be Fit.” Oh, Kroger Lady…just the thought of you sweating up a storm with your two-pound Wal-Mart weights makes my toes curl and sets my man parts a-tingle!

“Sexy” isn’t a tight-bodied, curvy young woman undulating provocatively in expensive lingerie. It’s the thought of you, Kroger Lady—88 years old if you’re a day—in an impossibly large bra, and silken white panties that could double as a parachute, bending over while peering into the oven, which is no doubt redolent of some homemade baked goodie.

“Sexy” is me giving you a sensual rubdown. There’s nothing quite like the intoxicating aroma created when the fumes from the BENGAY you are rubbing into your lover’s tired, aching, naked, liver-spotted back mingle with the scent of recently digested prunes.

What some call “varicose veins” I call “love lines.” What some call “crow’s feet” I call “bedroom eyes.” What some call “cellulite” I call “passion pockets.” Oh, Kroger Lady…just call me Mentholatum, and you can rub me on your chest with your veiny, paper-thin-skinned, old person hands.

When I think of the passion-filled nights we would share, leaving us both breathless—me with the efforts of sweet lovemaking, and you because your oxygen tank won’t fit with us in my twin bed—my pants swell like your goiter must when you forget to take your thyroid medication.

There are those who equate “elderly” with “spent,” but not me, Kroger Lady. I don’t believe you’ve truly lived until you’ve helped an elderly woman blow a pension check on an all-night bender of bingo and Bartles and Jaymes.

The intensity of the connection we made was matched only by its brevity, Kroger Lady. When you blew by me on your mobility scooter, looking like a wild-eyed Betty White on crystal meth and leaving an inexplicable ammonia smell in your wake, I hesitated for a split second. And that was all it took for you to whiz by me at three-point-five miles per hour, intent on your quest for Mueslix and adult diapers. Oh, how I wish I had that moment back! If I did, I would look you straight in your cataract-cloudy eyes and say, “Hey, girl…mind if I ride shotgun?”

Love,

Me

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A native Mississippian, Brent Hearn is hoping to become the very first Oxford writer to make it big. He enjoys playing percussion, playing poker, playing table tennis, and playing coy. When not working on his Best Thing Ever du jour, he’s cowriting a bill to legalize marriage to a jar of Nutella. (But just that one special jar because monogamy.) You can type words or post images at him on Instagram and Twitter by following @sydekix.