The Bad Table

I started a new workout class on Monday.  Thankfully, I'm joined in this exercise in pain by my good friend Lydia and my neighbor Nikki.  It makes it bearable, just knowing I get to go see them, instead of just going to be judged by a bunch of more fit, more agile, better people than me in a gym above the Senior Center twice a week.

So we had our first class on Monday, like I said.  I didn't check the location because Lydia did.  We had a good laugh over it being at the Senior Center.  I checked the address to be sure I knew where it was, and we happily agreed that we hoped it was us and a bunch of old ladies.  We'd look SO GOOD next to them.

On my way there, I passed a big wreck.  It was raining, and I saw raincoat-clad fire and ambulance types pulling people from cars onto stretchers.  It was not a good omen.  I called Lydia to tell her I might be late because the wreck held me up, and she said she was at the place and couldn't find her way in.  All the doors were locked.  Rut-roh.

So I popped into problem solving mode and popped over to the closest community center and asked them WHAT THE HELL.  Lydia and I agreed that IT IS HARD ENOUGH to drag our asses out to work out, let alone in the rain, and a wreck, and now we can't even get the F in the door?

They sent me back to the senior center with instructions to look for a stairway.  Lydia and I rounded the building three times in the rain.  Me dressed like a lesbian at gym class and her drenched and both of us on the verge of giving up.  This is why we're hot.

But finally I spied the secret stairway and we schlepped up the slick stairs in the rain, sure that one or both of us was going to break a hip on the way in, and this is the freaking Senior Center?

We were 20 minutes late.  Not that it mattered - we still got our butts kicked.

It was all women in the group, although nowhere in the materials did it say "Women Only."  The teacher, a middle-aged African woman with a thick accent, was shouting instructions to the women in the room, who were RUNNING.  Seriously, they were doing line drills a la basketball camp.

Our feet were wet, and we feared for our lives on the gym floor.  So we spent ten minutes drying the bottom of our shoes, and then we were instructed to get in there and RUN WITH THEM.  Oookay!  So much for warming up!

By this time I was laughing so hard at our many foibles and how INEPT we are, I got myself a nice side-ache to go along with everything.  The women in the class ranged, I'm guessing, from upper twenties to mid-sixties, and every one of them, EVERY. LAST. ONE. was in far better shape than me.

Lydia and Nikki and I tried our best to keep up, but mostly we stayed in the back and complained about our boobs hurting.  Apparently, I need a better bra if I'm going to keep this up.

We were the group that went left when everyone else went right.  We are the ones who tried to pretend we didn't know how to jump rope so we could get out of that portion of the show.  We laid on the floor like beached whales while the rest of the women planked their little hearts out.

And this is the story of my life.  Remember my birth team, and how it went in my birthing classes?  And if you know Lindsey, ask her about the cookie decorating class last week.  We were the table that hit the wine the second we walked in the door.  Everyone else eased into it about halfway through, but not us.  And my cookies looked like a nervous ferret decorated them.

I am always at The Bad Table.  I am always the one in the back making fart jokes, being irreverant, and generally screwing things up.  I am not sure why I am this way. I can't blame my mother.  She's reverent about most everything.  And I can't blame my husband because this all seems to happen when he's not around.

It's just me.  And I attract birds of a feather.

Tonight is our second circuit training class.  I still don't have a better bra.  But this time at least I know how to get in the door.