Avoiding Frozen Bitch Face — What You Need To Know

Imagine having this conversation while climbing up a mountain in Colorado. I laughed so hard, I almost fell off the path.

Wishing you a day full of laughter, and a visit from one of the fairies mentioned below… ~Jenny

Frozen Bitch Face
By Piper Bayard

Everyone’s face freezes at forty-five.

Seriously. At forty-five, give or take a year or two, Frosty the Face Freezer breathes on us at an unpredictable instant, and the expression we are wearing on our face at that moment is frozen there. Forever.

This is great for people who laugh and smile on a regular basis no matter how Life has tried to eat them alive. Frosty catches them mid-mirth and leaves them with Frozen Happy Face. They are blessed with a reputation for kindness and wisdom throughout their old age. They get to be the Cool Old Farts that everyone goes to for advice and humor and fights to sit next to at the Thanksgiving table.

I can hear your question now. What happens if Frosty comes in to freeze my face when I’m frowning?

I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but that will result in the dreaded . . .

Frozen Bitch Face.

Frozen Bitch Face is that grumpy look that some people have etched on their faces in the form of permanent frowns and/or butt-shaped wrinkles between their eyebrows.

Note the ass between his brows.
You see it, don’t you?
Image from CanstockPhoto.

You’ve seen Frosty’s victims.

The Grumpy Old Farts who glare from their porches at children playing ball. The aging women in the grocery stores who pick up each perfect apple and frown before complaining to the produce stockers. And—ugh!—the people on Facebook who can’t stop beating us around the head and shoulders with bad news and warnings about everything from political conspiracies to the zombie apocalypse.

I hear your next question, too. We all have bad days. What if I’m having a random bad day when Frosty comes?

Fear not! There are mitigating factors to minimize bad days and their long term effects on our faces.

The Effit Fairy

The first mitigating factor is called the Effit Fairy. The Effit Fairy can be Peter Pan or a seven-year-old girl with wings, whichever you choose, or both. I won’t judge.

My Effit Fairy
Image from CanstockPhoto.

She visits on our fortieth birthday—well ahead of Frosty’s ambush—to remind us that life is short, and no one else is living it for us. She reawakens the child inside each of us who is too young to give a damn what other people think. She enlightens us to the fact that yoga pants in public are actually a classy fashion statement.

Best of all, the Effit Fairy encourages us to stop giving a crap if other people are “disappointed” in us. Instead, she teaches us to say EFFIT! Because no one else is paying our mortgage, or dealing with our boss, or feeling the pain of that ski injury on our behalf.

Listening to your Effit Fairy is the first and most important thing you can do to avoid Frozen Bitch Face.

Other things that mitigate your chance of having Frozen Bitch Face:

1. Seek out laughter. Every time you laugh, you increase your chances that Frosty will freeze you with Happy Face.
2. Find something to like about the people you don’t like, even if it’s only liking the fact that they live in another state.
3. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all—also known as the Thumper Rule, since the rabbit in Bambi said it first. If Frosty catches you when you’re bitching about people, you will definitely get stuck with Frozen Bitch Face.
4. Take time for romance. Let’s face it, people who enjoy the hunka-hunka as often as possible are far more likely to be smiling and relaxed when they get frozen.
5. Find something to be grateful for every day. A grateful heart is a happy heart, and a happy heart makes for eventual Frozen Happy Face.

But what if I’m not approaching forty?

Easy. It’s never too early to practice. Trust me. You’ll need the practice. This positive outlook crap gets harder once arthritis sets in.

She got stuck.
Image from CanstockPhoto.

But what if I’m over forty, and I’m already stuck with Frozen Bitch Face?

Take heart. All is not lost. Another Fairy comes to visit at fifty. She’s the Effoff Fairy. She makes it easy for you to tell anyone who doesn’t like your Frozen Bitch Face to Effoff, and that will make you smile. 🙂

A little something else to make you smile . . .

I will give away a copy of my dystopian thriller, FIRELANDS, to a smiling commenter here at More Cowbell. To determine the winner, I will put the names of everyone who comments below in a hat and have my daughter draw one out at random on Friday, October 24, at 9:00 p.m. Mountain Time.

I also write spy thrillers with an amazing partner, Jay Holmes, who is a forty-year veteran covert operative and a senior member of the intelligence community. Our debut novella, THE SPY BRIDE, is in the Bestsellers’ Collection RISKY BRIDES, where we join USA Today Bestsellers Vicki Hinze, Rita Herron, Donna Fletcher, Peggy Webb, and Kathy Carmichael, and veteran authors Kimberly Llewellyn and Tara Randel to share our unique take on what it means to be a risky bride. 8 novels and novellas—8 genres—8 RISKY BRIDES. And only $.99! 

RISKY BRIDES is available for pre-order at Amazon, the iBookstore, and Kobo, and it will be released tomorrow, October 21, at all of these venues and Barnes & Noble.

Sign up for the Bayard & Holmes Newsletter to enter a special SPY BRIDE contest for a chance to win a Secret Decoder Ring, a stash of Ghirardelli chocolate, or a bottle of Mumm Napa sparkling wine. Your email will be sacred to us, as in, Holmes and I won’t share it with anyone. Not even each other.

So what are you doing to prevent or mitigate Frozen Bitch Face? Have you learned to say Effit yet, or are you already to the Effoff stage? I’d love to hear about your journey.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Piper Bayard is an author and a recovering attorney with a college degree or two. She writes spy thrillers with Jay Holmes, a forty-year veteran covert operative and a current senior member of the intelligence community. Piper is the public face of their partnership.

You can contact Bayard & Holmes in comments below, at their site, Bayard & Holmes, on Twitter at @piperbayard, on Facebook at Bayard & Holmes, or at their email, BH@BayardandHolmes.com.