"My but I'm starting to look old," Kathy said as she stared into her bathroom mirror. With her 35th birthday not a week away, Kathy didn't want to look her age when her family, as always, took her out to dinner to celebrate. "What can I do?" she whimpered. She then remembered that e-mail she received that morning, advertising a Youth Potion. And she placed an immediate order

A small can (not unlike that in which Slim-Fast is sold) arrived on the morning of her birthday. Kathy quickly drank it down. And by evening, as Kathy got dressed for her birthday dinner, she looked pleased into the mirror. "Don't look a day over 21! The potion worked! Look out, boys on the beach!" Kathy grinned.

But as she donned her turquoise rayon gown, she couldn't get it to fit as well as she'd like. Suddenly, she felt the hem of the gown hugging the floor. Looking down, Kathy saw the gown had become extremely baggy. She could see into the collar where her bra now dangled empty, and that her chest had become flat. "The potion is still working," Kathy thought, as she let out with a piercing shriek.

The scream attracted the other members of her family. "Mommy! Mommy! Why are you shrinking?" daughter Tiffany cried as she watched her mother become shorter and younger than her. Kathy lost her grip on the gown, which tumbled to the ground as her husband Paul arrived. He bundled up Kathy and drove her as fast as possible to the emergency room of the local hospital.

But by the time Kathy got attention from a doctor, the potion had stopped working. "Why, this is a perfectly healthy 1-year-old girl. How dare you waste our valuable time when other more needy people are waiting," the doctor scolded Paul. Troubled, Paul carried out Kathy, who was now wearing a diaper a nurse had provided. But Tiffany eagerly pointed to the window of the hospital's gift shop, which displayed a girl's white diaper set with gingerbread trim on the skirt's hem. "A new gown for Mommy's birthday?" Tiffany suggested. Paul agreed.

So Kathy's family kept their reservation at the restaurant. Of course, Kathy sat in a special chair so Paul could feed her a pureed meal. And she was the center of attention for wait staffers, who cooed at how cute she was, which Kathy enjoyed. They even provided Kathy with a small cake with a single candle (for her first birthday). After Tiffany helped blow out the candle, Kathy sunk her hands into the cake, enjoying the squish of pastry and frosting between her fingers, before depositing some on her chin. Looking around, Kathy grinned broadly as she thought, "Nobody but nobody will ever guess my real age now!"

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