I beg you to give this some thought.

Could you be turning into a High-Maintenance Sally?

Do you often find yourself, due to dietary restrictions, ordering things ON THE SIDE?

The older I get, the more I realize, to my utter dismay, I may be turning into High-Maintenance Sally.

If you’ve ever seen the movie, When Harry Met Sally, you know what I’m talking about.

There is a scene when Harry Burns, (played by Billy Crystal), says to Sally Albright, (played by Meg Ryan), “There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.”

Sally replies, “Which one am I?”

“You’re the worst kind; you’re high maintenance but you think you’re low maintenance.”

“I don’t see that.”

“You don’t see that? Waiter, I’ll begin with a house salad, but I don’t want the regular dressing. I’ll have the balsamic vinegar and oil, but on the side. And then the salmon with the mustard sauce, but I want the mustard sauce on the side. “On the side” is a very big thing for you.”

“Well, I just want it the way I want it.”

“I know; high maintenance.”

The older I get, the more I realize I’m starting to become high maintenance.

Maybe just a little.

I’m not trying to be a total pain in the rear.

I blame age. I just often find I need things a certain way, or the poop hits the fan.

Literally.

For example, I used to be fine with no-name-brand detergent.

Not I get a rash.

I used to be fine with no conditioner. (OK, if you’ve seen my high school portrait, I guess I really couldn’t get away with it – I just THOUGHT I could!)

I used to wake up, take a shower, get on my ten speed and go about my day. Three Rave perms a year, and I was set. I could eat ANYTHING on the menu and not worry about a thing.

Even in college, I’d go for a run, take a shower, slap on my jeans shorts and boom, I was set. I could let my hair air dry in the sun and never worry about a thing.

But after two kids and 19 years of marriage, things have started to change.

I NEED a hair dryer.

I get a headache if I order the wrong salad dressing.

I feel nauseous if I eat shellfish.

I skip conditioner for one day and I look like the lead singer of Quiet Riot.

You know you’re becoming High-Maintenance Sally when:

• You order things ON THE SIDE because you know you’ll end up spending half the  day in bed if you don’t.
• You try to drink a different beer than your “usual” and you end up with a hangover that lasts for days.
• Boxed wine makes you gag.
• Just the mention of the words, “Lemon shot” makes you cringe and want to run to the toilet.
• You snack on ONE granola bar that happens to have artificial sweetener in it and you get a gnarly migraine.
• You can’t pluck your eyebrows because they’re too thick and you can’t get them waxed because it causes an allergic reaction that makes you feel like the Elephant Man.
• You have to drive 20 minutes out of the way, a few times a month, to get your eyebrows professionally THREADED.
• Wearing cheap earrings actually does cause an ear infection.
• You HAVE to get your hair colored professionally every 6 to 8 weeks or you look like a Golden Girl.
• You buy a pair of jeans from the sales rack and the rear splits in half after one wash.
• You try a new brand of yogurt, just for poops and giggles, and you end up sitting on the potty, not laughing… for
• I’m really ashamed about this one: You get a horrible headache from the off-brand candle your daughter bought for you from her school store, so you secretly switch it out for a different scent that you can tolerate.
• You get a rash from off-brand cosmetics.
• You can’t skip a shower or else you look like Kramer during his bath binge.
• You convince yourself you need a pair of boots for the rain, another for the snow, another for girls’ nights, another for carpooling and two more because you can’t just have them in black!