No, a trip to HyVee or Target calls for a nice cardigan with a scarf. Putting my hair in a ponytail is starting to feel stupid. I go to bed at ten p.m. on most nights, even weekends. I am not impressed with most of the crap on the radio these days.
I am also starting to visibly age, but all is not lost; I’m just in the “prevention” stage of things. I’m using anti-wrinkle cream because I see the appearance of fine lines around my brow. My freckles are no longer cute, but multiplying as a sign of skin damage. This probably is mostly due to the years of unhealthy tanning that I’m struggling to wean myself off of, but I didn’t think I scowled so much.
Maybe I am scowling more, because I am already a disgruntled old lady in spirit. I feel like I don't identify with a lot of people anymore. I feel like some older people don't take me seriously because of my age. Then, many people my age or just a couple of years younger than me irritate me to no end. And most kids these days (that’s right, I said it. Kids. These. Days.) do not know how to behave. I don’t have children, so I probably shouldn’t judge, but I was a child once. I know it’s increasingly long ago, but damn, it wasn’t that long ago. When I see a child screaming and running amuck in a store, knocking things over, I visibly cringe. When I have people who bring their kids in my office and they are literally picking up things off my desk and throwing them, I have to hold back my own screams (and thank the teams of doctors and activists who created birth control and its distribution).
I try to give people a benefit of a doubt. Maybe I’m mistaking their complacency for utter beaten-down exhaustion. I know the only thing my mother-in-law could do to make my husband’s childhood tantrums to stop would be to just walk away. Then he would stop. But, some of these parents don’t seem to even try. Back in my retail days, some parents seemed genuinely amused when their children were climbing on very expensive displays or destroying merchandise. One time, I was witnessing a full-blown tantrum in a checkout line with my mother. I turned to her and whispered, “my God, how could you stand it?”
My mother, never in the mood for such bullshit, replied in a loud voice, “Easy, you weren’t allowed to act like that.”
Very true. I remember that if I acted up in a store, my mom would pull my ass out of there and into the car, where I would either cry myself out or be lectured into submission. I don’t remember a lot of punishments, or, dare I say it, SPANKINGS. But they happened. They just didn’t have to happen often, because the threat was enough. I knew my parents would follow through with the punishment. There was no bargaining (“If you’re good in the store, you get a toy”). In my family, if you’re good in the store, you will have a nice ride home without a sore ass. And you might be allowed to go again.
This time of the year is the worst. Have you ever seen a child throwing an absolute fit of greed in a store and just wanted to walk up to them and tell them that Santa isn't real? Or that their parents don't really love them? I have mentioned this to a few people, but I would never do it. No one seems to think it's as funny as I do.
These bratty kids that I have started noticing only a few years ago are now teenagers and even in their early 20’s. These are the people I had to oversee at my retail jobs. Girls who just show up for work when they feel like it (unfortunately, I worked for a company that was very difficult to get fired from). Girls who cannot form a coherent sentence without the word “like” (I know I have been guilty of this, but in a professional setting, I can cut it out). I’ve interviewed girls who have shown up wearing tank tops and flip flops. I could be interviewing for a head stripper position at the Playhouse off the interstate south of town and would dress nicer than some of these girls.
And the sad thing is, they see nothing wrong with it. They think they might actually get the job. Who is teaching these people? Nobody, that's who.
One of the biggest gripes I have as a new old person is how addicted some young people are to technology, and how annoying they are with it.
I went to the gym this morning and noticed most of the usual people. As I walked by the recumbent bikes, I noticed a young couple I see often on my mornings at the gym. Since they always work out together, I had thought the guy might be the girl’s trainer, but it’s become increasingly evident that they are dating. They have to be next to each other at the gym. Every. Second. I’m not against going to the gym with your partner. I think it’s actually a great idea, but you aren’t going to see Josh and me chatting and brushing up against each other on side by side recumbent bikes, which is exactly what this couple was doing. I immediately disliked the girl because she looked way too cute to be at the gym. Her blonde hair was pulled back to reveal perfect full make-up, and she was clad in a cute gray sweat suit. This is sheer jealousy talking, because I can’t wear gray, especially to the gym. But a black shirt on me, and I might not sweat a drop. But, I could be sitting on a curb in the middle of an Arctic snowstorm and would pit out through a gray shirt, not to mention the ass cheek sweat stains.
I mentally roll my eyes and head toward my favorite corner. There are four treadmills in a row. On one end, a girl runs at effortlessly fast pace, not even breaking a sweat. I take my place at the other end, leaving two treadmills between us.
Running was terrible, and I don’t want to talk about it, so after a sad attempt at a half mile, then a quarter mile. I decided that my time would be better served walking briskly on an incline, both working my running muscles and burning fat, two things I need to improve my running.
As I’m dripping uphill, Romeo and Juliet come sauntering over to my corner, hands brushing against each other. Oh goody, two treadmills side by side, it’s so perfect. Juliet climbs on next me, and is having trouble starting her treadmill up.
“Oh no,” she starts to panic and frantically hit the Quick Start button. “Crap, come on, come on.” She looks around for other adjoining treadmills and sees none. Oh no, will she actually have to be away from her beloved for her cardio.
Saved by the goddess Aphrodite (the goddess of love), her treadmill starts. I swear I heard her sigh with relief. How pathetic. She adjusts her speed and incline and immediately grabs her cell phone, and I immediately want to leave her side.
“Oh my god, look at this picture Jana posted of me. All you can see is the side of my head. Oh my god, there are like, twenty like that. Oh, look at this one. Isn’t that like, so cute? Look. Look.” She shows her boyfriend, who is feigning interest. He nods and offers a non-committal, "Yeah, that's cool." Like, oh my God, stop enabling her idiocy.
She continues to go through every facebook photo that was posted through her past drunken weekend that I don’t care to know anything about. I’m pretty hard of hearing, but I could hear her stupid rambling stories over my iPod, which was blasting what she would call oldies.
“So this girl walked in on someone taking a pee in the bathroom, and there were like, six girls there. And someone said, like, ‘I don’t care whose house this is.’ And that was like, the first time Kelli met Stacy so Stacy was like whatever, like I don’t want to be a bitch because I don’t know her, but she’s fat. And then she was like, ‘well I can work on my body but you can’t work on your face.’ Then I was like, ‘don’t be rude.’ But she totally was kinda fat.”
I don’t know what perplexed me more, that I may have sounded that brain-dead not too many moons ago, or that this girl actually had an experience away from her boyfriend enough to tell him a story. Either way, I wanted to strangle her with my iPod cord. I snuck a sideways glance and felt comforted when I saw her slightly thickening belly. Ah yes, me four years ago. You just wait girlie, keep drinking with Kelli and Stacy and your fat days are coming.
She is on her cell phone the entire time, texting, looking at facebook, and doing God knows what. There is no way she has anything that important going on. I know I’m pretty attached to my Blackberry, but I enjoy putting it down every once in a while. What upset me was that the ladies in the senior swim class probably group me in with this girl. I can't stand the thought. This is the type of girl I will be interviewing, and her ringtone will tell me how her milkshake brings all the boys to the yard. What? Too old of a song? Shit.
After what seemed like an eternity, I can't take anymore, not even for literary purposes. I went to the spin room to get some solitary cardio in. I have been trying out the spin bikes before I commit to an hour class and I'm glad I did. I'm awkward and I'm learning the ropes on how to adjust the damn things. I also wanted to spy on the new classes being offered in the workout studio. On Friday, I learned that my gym started offering Zumba, which is nice, because all this time that "At my gym, free Zumba comes standard" poster in that bathroom has just been one big lie. The darkness of the spin room and the surrounding mirrors of the studio offer a creepers dream. I observed a lady who was in her forties practicing some moves that I think I saw in an MC Hammer video. I can't be sure because she looked so arthritic doing it. I giggled to myself. I can just tell myself that I don't look that silly, yet.
But my day is coming, and so is Juliet's. I look in the mirror. Yep, still on that phone. A girl like that will never know what she is missing, which is Miss Middle Age WASP doing awkward hip thrusts, and the young Zumba instructor trying not to laugh.
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