I’ve been getting mixed signals lately. Friends tell me, “You look great!” and yet at the movie theatre last week, the gal at the ticket booth gave me the senior discount. I knew Sunnybuns got a cut rate for being under 4-foot-5 ... oh, wait ... that was at the fleabag circus that came to town — he got the cut rate at the movie for thankfully still being under the age of 12. Normal rate for me would about $7, or $12 total.

“Thank you, ma’am, that will be 10 dollars,” said the Bratz look-alike behind the plexiglass.

I pulled out a $10 and handed it through the knuckle-scraping hole at the bottom of the window.

As I turned to go where the smell of popcorn was pulling me, it dawned on me that I had saved two bucks.

Huh? How did that happen?

I glanced up quickly and clapped eyes on the “senior” rate. Five dollahs. Diggity dawg...I got the senior rate! I wasn’t gonna argue, that extra two bucks would buy me a large Coke!

Later in the week, I pulled through Taco Bell to get Sunnybuns some dinner and as I was waiting for the two crunchy tacos and some of those styrofoam cinnamon twists, I must have had a brain fart because suddenly I was about two feet past the window. How did I get here? It was weird. One minute I was perfectly lined up, next thing I know, after fiddlin’ with the radio, I’m halfway outta the drive.

I rolled the window down and realized I couldn’t back up because the clown behind me was kissin’ my bumper.

The window opened and Taco Tanya said, “Where’d you go?”

I turned and made the shoulder popping reach for the bag and said, “I dunno...I just slid past the window...!”

“Oh well, that’s OK, my grandma did that last week,” she said sympathetically.

I smiled and took the goodie bag, flippin her off with my free hand hidden by the door.

I rolled the window back up so she couldn’t hear me using cuss words I normally save to scare small children with.

“Grandma my a...chin’ back,” I grumbled, handing the sack over to Sunnybuns.

He cocked an eyebrow at me and said, “You sounded just like Homer Simpson, Mom!”

“Apparently I must look like Homer Simpson, too!” I complained.

“Naw, you don’t look like Homer. You look like that lady that grandma watches all the time on the Hallmark channel!” he said reassuringly, unwrapping taco number one.

“Which lady is that?” I asked, fearing what I knew he would say.

“I don’t know ... that lady you say you can’t stand because she’s such a busybody. Wears those great big glasses ... talks funny,” he said, stuffing lettuce into his mouth.

Lawsy. Not her...

“You mean Jessica Fletcher?” I asked, feeling bile rise up in my throat.

“I don’t know her name ... but she comes on before Andy Griffith, I think,” he said, wiping sour cream off his lip with his sleeve.

“Murder She Wrote?” I shuddered.

“Yeah, I think that’s it. They show her at the typewriter all the time. That’s the lady you look like,” he said, nodding and smiling.

I wanted to ground him immediately from using his xBox for six months, but I knew he was just trying to be honest.

“I cannot believe you think I look like her,” I said, trying to look up into my rearview mirror.

“Well, I was gonna say you look like that other lady that wears the flowerdy dress. The other show Grandma likes to watch,” he said stuffing the rest of the taco into his mouth.

“Who is that?” I squeaked, “ Mother Harper? ‘On Mama’s Family?’” I asked, my face totally contorted by fear.

“I think so ... the one with the curly gray hair. Only you aren’t as fat as she is,” he said, digging into the bag for taco number two.

I closed my eyes for a second to assimilate this information. My own son thought I looked like someone’s grandma.

“You know what, Mom? I think you really look like that lady on ‘Golden Girls,’” he said, nodding his head, “yeah ... you look like the one on ‘Golden Girls.’”

“Who? Which one? The old one?” I felt my bones shriveling.

“No ... she’s too old ... the other one...,” he said, staring out the window as he crunched the taco shell.

“Rose? The one they pick on all the time?” I stopped abruptly at the stop sign. I just had to know which one.

“No...she’s funny. I like her,” he grinned at me, nodding again.

“Dorothy? Is it Dorothy? The tall one that sounds like a man?” I looked both ways and lurched across the road.

“Gosh, Mom, no way! Not her! She’s scary! The other one ... the one that is always talking about men ... Her!”

“Blanche? Blanche Deveraux? The one that sounds like this?” and I laid my best Blanche imitation on him.

“Yeah. That’s who you look like mostly, only she has nicer pajamas than you do,” he said, eyeballing my tattered sweatpants and paint-splattered T-shirt.

Whew. From Jessica Fletcher to Blanche Deveraux in under two minutes. That’s the fastest plastic surgery reconstruction in the history of modern TV.

I better make sure I channel surf past the Clampetts...