So it's your birthday. How you feeling? How old you said you'll be? Yeah, yeah I know a woman is never supposed to reveal her age (is this mere vanity I ask myself–silently of course–no point in upsetting the old girl, Mum's the word. You're probably like me, still thinking I'm 27 and getting a nasty shock when I glimpse my raddled mug in the mirror–all this under my breath). How old do I think you look? Careful, that's definitely a trick question, diplomacy and toujours la politesse.
Well my dear–let's lay this on with a trowel, flattery gets you most places–I wouldn't put you a day over 40 and quite honestly (lies, lies and more lies) I think you look years younger than your twin sister up the road. She certainly hasn't kept her looks–all that crab and dumpling, no good for the waistline, and you certainly can show her a thing or six, when it comes to wining yours, waistline that is.
She's a real boobaloops, a mamp incarnate, fat like mud, don't talk about hippo (but don't tell her I told you so, I'll be heading her way soon).
But you, look how good you looking and you moving sweeter than all them young girls, with their bony macaroni stick insect foot. Lemme tell you straight, manno to madame, I like a woman with some size, something to get my teeth–no, no I mean my arms–round. Never! I've never thought of you as fat, just well-rounded, in personality as well as form.
And even if it was a teeny bit of a squeeze getting into your thong last Carnival, what a sight (for sore eyes) you were on the road. It certainly needs a mature woman to carry off that kind of minimal costuming (mutton dressed up as lamb, the total absence of any structural support, slackness and abandon).
In a word, I cannot lie (except with every breath I take), I found you far more attractive than the current Miss T&T, or for that matter any of the small-island beauty queens. I'd say you were quite rightly in the same league as Miss USA, or even Miss Greece (same kind of economy, same kind of graft).
But I know looking good (in your dreams) is of little concern to such a high-minded person as yourself (yeah right, always checking the mirror). That's what keeps you so young–not that I'm implying you're not, because we all know you are and whoever says otherwise is just a nasty neemakharam and jealous they jealous.
Dear lady, what has always attracted me about you is your mind (vacuous, vapid, banal), your scintillating wit (stale as old hops), your impressive vocabulary (is wha?), that razor sharp intellect which has mere mortals like myself and every other member of the cabinet–you know, that old armoire in a dusty corner of your boudoir–trembling with abject adoration.
What can I tell you? Whatever those vicious poor-me-ones say, you are indeed a queen, maybe not African, but right up there with Liz, and anyway you certainly showed them in your Emancipation gown, didn't you? (never mind the headpiece). I bet they were all scrabbling for the name and number of your seamstress.
Don't worry with them, they're traitors and you know what they do with traitors–off with their heads, I say. As a patriot (or scoundrel as Oscar Wilde would have it) I'm bound to state unequivocally (I want to keep my job and the gravy train running, do I have a choice?) that you, you are beyond compare (one's enough for this lifetime, douds, but a good analogy would be those rotting hulks they say they've now cleared from the sea roads beyond the lighthouse in town).
Who would be so boldface as to say you need a makeover (or even suggest that it's time you took a runoff and don't stop)?
It really is a privilege to be on hand (and on my knees) to wish you many happy returns, however old you say you are (and even if you behave like a spoiled petulant brat instead of a 52-year-old broad).
Not only have you kept your looks, I'd say you've improved them (look at all those wonderful, quite useless skyscrapers) and whatever minor blemishes (flood, constitutional crisis, murder, crime, wasted or unaccounted for billions) some may unpatriotically perceive, I'd say you're good for another 52 years. Let's make that 21, the kind of figure you're probably more comfortable with. Here's to you, happy birthday (hope you don't choke on the champers).