It appears I’ve been catfished…

 “You’ve what?” asks Rissa, slightly laggy on her end of the video call. “Who have you been talking to? What did you do?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I think it’s just my age.”

“It’s what? What do you mean it’s your age?”

“I think you just get to a certain age and…”

“You think there are people specifically targeting* 50-something women? What did they do? Did you cancel your credit cards?!?”

“Huh?” It takes me a second. “No! Oh, no, I haven’t been catfished like that.”

“In what way have you been catfished?”

“In the way that I am slowly becoming a catfish.”

Now Rissa pauses. And blinks. 

“I am developing jowls.” I indicate my jaw line. 

She blinks again. “How does this having anything…”

“I have the jowls and now there are more whiskers here.” I point to the corners of my mouth. “And here.” I point to my bottom lip line.

“I can see no whiskers, Ma.”

“They are there. I can feel them.” My tongue touches each side of my mouth, back and forth, feeling for the whiskers. I lick my bottom lip line. I can still feel them, even though I spent a good 15 minutes plucking those suckers earlier in the day.

“There are no visible whiskers, Ma.”

“That’s because they’re mostly white and I pluck them. But they’re there, and if I let them grow, between the whiskers and the slight jowls – total catfish.”

“You are ridiculous.”

“That’s as may be, but I’m either going to evolve into a catfish or have a very stylized Fu Mancu moustache.”

            *Side note – why does targeting only have one ‘t’ before the ‘ing,’ but getting has two??