Speaking of "Noony"

It's true that high school girls often do everything in pairs: go to the bathroom, study, shave each other's legs. But one thing that high school chicklets absolutely MUST do in a twosome is go to the gym!

I remember when I was in high school, my friend Leslie and I would go for early morning runs or my friend Liz and I would do the Rachel Hunter kickboxing workout together or, even better, my friend Molly owned MTV's the Grind workout. Anyway, the point is if you weren't on side-by-side stairsteppers talking about how another girl (who wasn't there) talks about people behind their backs, then you weren't really working out. And if you didn't have the requisite "am I getting fat? No, honestly, you'd tell me right? Am I retardedly huge right now?" then you couldn't reasonably leave the gym and go take a shower. A girl needs to know if she's become morbidly obese overnight. Otherwise, how else is she supposed to strap on the same pair of Umbros day in and day out?



One thing is for sure, though, catty teens love to make fun of the older, worst-dressed, and often less agile grown women at the gym. And it wasn't until recently that I realized that I am that older "noony" woman. A few events have brought me to this conclusion:

1) I fell off of my exercise ball after doing one crunch.The ball rolled past a pair of twiggy teens on their yoga mats and then across the entirety of the gym, where it stopped in what I like to call the "boy" section (where all of the meatheads are lifting 1000 lb weights). So, I had to walk, in all of my sweaty-blotchiness, across the length of the gym to retrieve my ball. As I returned, I noticed that the teens were doing that laugh where you press your lips together and look at the ceiling (as if to be like, "Oh my god...I'm about to laugh...I can't believe it! I'm...bout...to...explode!!!") I wished they would've just laughed, it would've been far less humiliating. And, of course, I had to get back on the ball even though I was terrified of falling off again, just to show them that I was not a douchebag.


2) I was hit by a cab wearing the most unflattering stretch pants ever. I remember thinking, while leaving the gym, "God I hope that I don't run into anyone I know, not with these darn stretch pants on." Luckily, it wasn't my work crush that I ran into, but a large yellow cab, like a Chrysler LaBaron. Due to the slickness of the stretch material, though, I literally glided across and then off the hood in an almost rhythmic way. Luckily, when the paramedics and police came, neither said anything about the pants.

3) I let one go in the direction of an Orthodox Jew teen in my Awesome Abs class -- BUT IT WAS ONE OF THOSE CRUNCHES WHERE YOUR LEGS AND ARMS ARE MOVING AT THE SAME TIME!!! It's not my fault. Also, obviously, this Ortho teen was there with her Ortho teen friend and even though they are religious, they still know how to shoot a mean glance. (FYI , they take off their ankle-length skirts for ab classes. In case you were interested.)

But honestly, does this mean that I have reached a "nooniness" factor of my infamous gym cohort Teva Braids-a-Lot (see previous post)? And also, would it make things better if I took a friend to the gym? Because, let's be real, who thinks that that prescription drug commercial, where that quartet of old women do that "kick move" and then go for a power walk, is cool? (I wish I could remember the drug so that I could link it, but I can't). I think that I've just resolved to be alone in my gym nastiness. I don't need to gossip while I am on the treadmill, they have TVs and Law and Order is on at all hours of the day.