Geriatric Blogger Mauls Pubescents

Sometimes I feel spry and nimble and barely realize I'm in my mid-thirties. And I am still in my mid-thirties, contrary to what some of you would say. Thirty-nine is late thirties.

But other times I feel downright decrepit. Like the other night at the gym.

Usually when I go to the gym, it's in the middle of the day with the other SAHMs and the retired folks. That's also when I feel all nimble and young. Benchpressing next to a man with an oxygen tank does something to remind me of my youth.

But I've been busy, so I have been skulking off to the gym after dinner. Ladies, have you had children? When you last saw the decade of your twenties was Friends the hot new show? Then DON'T go to the gym at night. This is when the young people come out.

*cue screeching horror music*

I am nearing a very special time of the month, the time where I bring out the parachute-esque pair of worn cotton panties. The time where I don't want to wear clothing that presses on my pubis or lower uterine area - nothing that even reminds me of any girl part on my body.

So my attire at the gym was comprised of the following: full-waisted gray nylon pants (the kind that billow all around your tummy/ass region when you sit? Quite comfortable), old pink tank top and white hoodie that have both mysteriously shrunk since the holidays, thick black glasses (my contacts are rebelling and I look like an angry rabbit with them in), frizzy-post holiday winter hair hastily scraped back into *cue additional horror music* a scrunchie. I should add the extra special bonus that is the joy of wearing high waisted anything: each butt cheek looks about eighteen inches long.

My finest moment? Perhaps not. But I am not there to snag a man, and frankly, there have been times at the gym before noon when ensembles like that have made men have to crank up the oxygen levels on their tanks.

I worked out and realized I had been there for two hours and needed to get home and take care of some things. So I ran through the narrow hall by the racquetball courts, the swishing of my nyloned thighs announcing me, and these two young things were sauntering in front of me blocking my way.

They were really annoying. And not just because they were meandering and swaying and not maintaining a straight trajectory so that I might pass them.

But also because they were that young taut breed that I now think of as young. They had teeny tiny shorts on, the low-ride fit clearly not enough since the waist-band was rolled to the top of their hoo haws. They had no body fat except what was in their bras, and they skipped in front of me with long glossy hair - the kind that is effortlessly thrown into a messy bun. The very same way I sometimes try and wear my hair now, except I always end up looking like a bald woman with a knot at the nape of her neck. Four kids and the hair and nails take a slight beating.

So I finally pass these girls and I'm practically racing down the hall, my thighs this close to starting a fire, and I hear one of them giggle and say, "Excuuuse us!" and the other giggles right back and says:

(in an old lady voice like you would affect for oh, say, a woman in her nineties): "Yeah, excuse me, eh?"

When did I get old?