A funny thing happened on the way to the bathroom

I had to attended this thing for school on Friday.  It was a pre-class class sorta thing.  The freshmen enrollment for this class was 1700 students. 1700 of us sitting there in this auditorium. I was surrounded by fresh out high school kids. The girls hair were so shiny and new.  Their faces have yet even know what a wrinkle is.  They had hot pink finger nail polish on their fake nails and matching toe nails.  They wore shorts that were barely there and no cellulite to speak of.  I felt like I was Browser from the Super Mario games in a sea of perfect Barbie Dolls.  I hadn’t died in my hair a few weeks and the grey roots are making their appearance yet again.  *sigh* My skin hasn’t see the glow of youth in I don’t know when and I certainly wasn’t wearing hot pink anything or shorty short shorts.  But I still felt kinda sorta ‘just ok’ about myself. I mean I’m not an old hag or anything, right? I listen to Lady Gaga and love Jersey Shore and of course I know what tweeting is.  “All that should totally count as me still being totally awesome!” I tried to convince myself.

As I left that morning and took one last look in the mirror, I felt ok about myself.  While I know I’m not the prettiest girl in the room and certainly am not going to turn any heads, I didn’t and I don’t think that I look like I should have a starring role as a witch in the next fairy tale movie.  

You should know that being old is like one of my biggest fears. I have no idea why.  But if I had the money to burn, Dr. 902010 would be on speed dial to keep the “oldness” at bay as much as I could.

So.  Here I was, in a sea of perfect 17 years old feeling more insecure than I have felt in a really long time, but I got over myself and tried to enjoy the day.

However, I knew I was out of my league when the professor started talking about Burt Reynolds and I guess she could feel the vibe from the class that her reference was lost on these kids and she asked, “Who in here doesn’t know who Burt Reynolds is?” And nearly everyone raised their hands.   And the hands being raised had the same kind of silly band bracelets my own kids wear and trade with their friends at recess (which I think if you are out of elementary school, silly band bracelets should be illegal. Anyone over the age of 10 just looks silly wearing them, in my opinion anyway). 

So, at one point I was walking to the bathroom before our pre-class class started up again.  Two young ladies were walking next to me.  “Oh. God. They probably think I’m old enough to be their mom! They probably think I’m a teacher or something. Please don’t let them ask me something they would ask a teacher like, ‘Where is such-n-such?”  Then one of the Barbie Dolls asked if I was a student.  “Oh Lord, here it is. She is gonna ask me a teacher type question! Brace yourself! It won’t be that bad. You’ll be ok.” 

I replied: “Yep. I’m a student too.”

Perfect Barbie Doll Girl: “Wow! How does it feel to be around all these young kids?” 

What I wanted to say: “Listen up, you will be 33 one day too! You will have grey hair. Your youthful glow will disappear when you have kids  of your own and you start to worry about something more important than your next tanning session.  You will be buying anti-wrinkle cream before you know it and yes, my dear child, life will throw you curve balls and you will not, in fact, have conquered the world and done everything you ever wanted to do by the time you are 33 so step the fuck off!”  That is what I wanted to say, but instead I just said, “I don’t like it at all.  I feel very out of place.”

Please note that I did, in fact, buy some chocolate last night out of pure depression over her asking me such a question. I think the buying of chocolate last night was totally justified!

So there it is. There it was. These kids do see me as “that old lady over there.”  I am no longer hip or cool or socially relevant in this new world.  I am just old. 

I really wished I had married a plastic surgeon right about now.  No offense to my awesome hubby, but I really don’t want to ever be old.  I want to be a perfect 17 year old Barbie again.  Or at least Stacy’s Mom.

And in case you are wondering –which I totally know you are!- the only person that I met who was older than me was a retired army guy. *sigh* What have I gotten myself into?