Wikipedia defines a "cougar" as, "a mammal of the Felidae family, native to the Americas. This large, solitary cat has the greatest range of any wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere, extending from Yukon in Canada to the southern Andes of South America. An adaptable, generalist species, the cougar is found in every major American habitat type."
My friend Matt from home loosely defines a "cougar" as, "any older woman, preferably a mother, who looks like she's 23, but you know she's in her mid-40s and down to get weird." I never trust Wikipedia, so I'm going to go with my friend's definition.
I have a thing ... excuse me, an obsession, with women who are at least 2.1 times older than me. Like, I can't control myself. When I was in NYC this summer for my internship, all of my friends would be like, "Hey Rembert, let's go to the club tonight -- I bet there will be a ton of girls our age there." I would always play along and say yes, but on the inside, I'd be thinking things like, "Can't we watch a re-run of Golden Girls" or "I hear there's an Oprah's Book Club meeting going on at that Dean and Deluca across the street. Can we at least see if there is truth to that rumor?"
This is embarrassing to admit, but we're all friends, right? Sure, senior women at Dartmouth are amazing. I love all of them. But why settle for senior women when you could have a senior woman. Like, a 58-year-young mother of 3 adults with a grandkid on the way?
I don't want to go into my own personal reasoning for loving older women, but what I will say is that there are some cougars throughout history that stand out from the pack. I present to you, the 7 cougars that have changed my life for the better.
- Tina Fey as Sarah Palin
I first fell in love with Tina Fey when she was in the most important movie of my high school years, Mean Girls. I thought my infatuation for her could not go up, but then Maverick McCain decided to name what appeared to be a S.I. Swimsuit model as his Vice Presidential counterpart. Both Tina and I immediately realized what needed to be done, and within one week, Ms. Fey started delivering the most beautiful and spot-on impression of Caribou Barbie that will ever be done.
- Joan Didion
Perfection. Movin' on ...
- Hagar
If you know which Hagar I'm talking about, then this is a no-brainer. For those of you not up on your biblical history, Hagar is the Mary Louise Parker of Egyptian female servants. Hagar was so fine that Sarah, Abraham's wife, was just like, "Hagar, I can't compete with you; you should be Abraham's wife." And so it was. She was Ishmael's mom, and I think I read somewhere that Ish hated it when moms would come pick him up from school just wearing her Egyptian collar sans T-tunic. His classmates would have a field day. Oh, boys are so cruel ...
- New York
How many episodes of Flavor of Love have you missed? Well, throughout the first two seasons, I only missed one episode (I had to watch "Abre Los Ojos" on Pushkin). That dedication to VH1's finest piece of art has little to do with the title character or the impressive display of gender relations. I watched that show because I finally found a woman that I would be proud to bring home to my mother. That woman is Tiffany Pollard, more commonly known by her Flav name, New York. Maybe it is my Southern upbringing, maybe it's just my high standards, but I have never seen outright class presented so gracefully as I have in New York.
- Amelie Freud
Amelie Freud was such a hot mom that she unknowingly was the muse for a field of science, that being psychoanalysis. In case you're some Joe Six Pack that knows nothing about nothing, to break down the history of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud saw his mom (Amelie) naked and fell in love and decided to start inventing things that you can now take classes about. Had Amelie not been such the cougar that she was, I wouldn't get to use phrases such as "phallic-oedipal" and "superego" everyday.
- Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is a woman. Prove to me that "it" isn't a woman and I'll take "it" off this list.
- Claire Huxtable
Part of me is ashamed that I wasted time describing these other unreal older women, because the entire time, the only thing I've been thinking about is whether or not Claire Huxtable will read this article and then want to marry me. I have had my fair share of crushes on mom characters instead of the real actresses (Jill Taylor from Home Improvement, Sarabi from The Lion King, the second Vivian Banks from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air Seasons 4-6) As much as I love these women, they all pale in comparison to Ms. Huxtable. I actually can't call this woman a cougar, because she's not an animal " she's a goddess. This woman is, outside of my mother and the women that work at Homeplate, the most important woman in my life. She is the reason I will never be married until I find someone like her. She is the reason that I want to be Bill Cosby for Halloween. I don't know much about Phylicia Rashad in real life, but if she's anything like Claire Huxtable, I want to meet her.
Rembert is a staff writer.
